According to my microeconomics professor (Dr. Mark Showalter), voting in elections is not a rational action to take. In many places, you have to take time out of your day to drive to the polling place, cast your ballot, and drive home. But the effect of your individual vote is essentially zero, since it is highly unlikely that your vote will tip the election one way or the other. So, according to Dr. Showalter, no rational person ought to vote.
On the other hand, Dr. Showalter admits that he personally votes. Why? Mostly out of a vaguely-defined sense of "civic duty". Presumably, he gets some personal utility out of casting his ballot, and so he does so every year. His argument is that if you are going to vote, it should not be because you think you will make a difference by voting.
I recently mailed in my ballot for this year's midterm election. I'm registered to vote in Washington where almost everybody votes by mail (in fact, that is the only way to vote in 34 out of Washington's 39 counties). So, for me (presumably), the cost of voting is not nearly as significant -- I can sit here in my apartment and vote at my leisure. Is it more rational to vote like this? Perhaps, but since the candidates I voted for are heavily favored to win, I still don't have much hope of actually influencing the election. (In fact, there were about 15 unopposed races on the ballot. I skipped all of these.)
So is it a good idea to vote? It probably doesn't do too much harm. Plus, there's the argument that if everyone acted rationally and did not vote, then it would become a rational act for one person to vote and determine the entire election. So, voting must be rational on some level... but it probably is not in general.
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Wholly Cattle, there is a difficult idea to get your head around. What if voting also illustrated the views of large groups of people. The democratic process would fall apart if people didn't vote, yet it is so hard to find a hole in the logic because it is probably true that the individual doesn't make a difference. Perhaps the individual is not meant to make a difference, like you said if only one person voted the whole election would be decided by one person. I don't think the founders wanted that. So while we keep our individual identity our vote goes into the pool of votes that line up with our way of thinking. This way not just one person can radically change the country. The only way to change it is to not only convince them of your position, but also sufficiently motivate them to go out to the polls and actually vote. Which we both know is not the easiest thing in the world--in fact nearly impossible. Democracy is the only government that can vote itself out of power, so the voting process in large blocks like that seems like a good way to preserve unless change is really needed, then with sufficient motivation and resolve can it go forward. Uh...sorry that was a little longer that I meant to make it. To quote brutus "Don't hate me" I thought it was a very thought provoking blog. Keep writing ^_^
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