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Does voting make sense?

Should citizens make the effort to participate in elections knowing that their vote will have no effect on the outcome?

John Samples, Director of the Center for Representative Government, answers these questions.

Should people vote?

I think people in some general sense should vote, but they should vote if they want to. I mean there's countries like

Australia and in the past some European countries require people to vote. They

find them, no one jails people but they find them if they don't vote. We don't do that and I think that's part

of what commitment to liberty in the United States has brought about. You're not required to

participate. People decide whether they want to vote, they decide whether they want to

participate in politics. There shouldn't be anything the government does or groups of

people do to prevent them from participating or voting.

On the other hand, I don't think there's any good reasons

why the government should require them to vote

or should make efforts to get them to change their mind if they don't want to vote. People have the right to do it.

They can if they want to. But if they don't want to, well that's their choice too.

I've heard arguments to the effect that voting costs more to individuals than the benefits they reap from the process.

Yeah, that's the traditional argument among experts about voting. It's not rational to vote because it cost a lot to do it.

And when you think about it, that makes sense. I mean, if you're going to vote, you have to figure

out who to vote for. You have to have some idea about who's running and you have to have to figure out who to vote for you have to have some idea about who's

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