Why should I vote?

The only reason to vote is purely symbolic, wave my ink-stained finger around and act as if I have done my civic duty.

Far be it for me to promote “slackerism” but here is some advice for election day: sleep in, enjoy the holiday, spend some much-needed time with your family and don’t bother to vote. Contrary to what the scolds keep telling you, your vote doesn’t matter and it never has mattered. The chances of it mattering are about one in a million. You have a much better chance of getting picked in the annual US green card lottery than you of casting a vote that will have any effect on the outcome.

This isn’t a usual pox-on-all-politicians argument which says that all candidates are equally corrupt and evil and so there is no point in voting. You could have one candidate who is perfect in every way running against Hitler and still your vote would be pointless. Georgetown professor Jason Brennan once ran the numbers in a scenario where one candidate would produce GDP growth of 0.25 per cent more than his opponent. For the voter, casting a ballot for him would give a personal gain in wealth of 2,648 magnitudes less than a penny. Basically, Brennan says, the voter should stay at home because he or she is vastly more likely to die on the way to the polls than to benefit from voting. As part of a research project, I have been looking at the results of every National Assembly seat in every election. There has yet to be a case where a single vote ended up deciding the outcome.

Realising the futility of voting is not the same as calling for political disengagement. Instead of voting, you could post a status update on Facebook about an issue dear to your heart. Convincing one of your few hundred friends to take the issue seriously is a far greater possibility than casting a vote which matters. In my constituency, NA-250, the MQM candidate got more than 80,000 votes in the 2008 elections while my preferred party, the ANP, got less than 100. There is absolutely nothing I can do to affect the outcome. The only reason to vote is purely symbolic, so I can wave my ink-stained finger around and act as if I have done my civic duty.

On top of not voting ourselves, we also should not be encouraging others to vote. Not everyone is as politically aware and the chances are that if we shame a hesitant voter into marking an “X” on a piece of paper, that voter will not have done much research. It is no secret that people do not always vote according to their own interests and those who are not politically engaged at all will be even more likely to cast a vote that doesn’t represent his or her interests.

One of the worst arguments in favour of voting is that you have no right to complain about the performance of those in power if you are a non-voter. Curiously enough, no one applies the same logic to those who vote for winning candidates and hold them accountable for their performances. There are many ways of bringing about desired political change. Organising rallies or writing articles are unlikely to succeed but these tactics are more likely to effect change than voting.

All this said, I may just end up voting myself but will do so with open eyes. I’ll be voting for the same reason that I go to a Pakistan cricket match and scream at the top of my lungs or stick a Liverpool football club badge on my laptop. I know I won’t affect the outcome; I’m just loudly telling everyone else what my preference is.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 29^th, 2013.