Nathan Newman:
> Again again, voting is abstracted as just an individual act, while ignoring
> the social meaning and social solidarity embodied in the overall "trading"
> phenomena, which is to propagandize for the "Ivins" strategy of strategic
> voting. All the messages attached to such trading sites tell marginal
> Nader-Gore voters whether their state is a swing state or a "safe" state
> (for Gore or Bush) and thereby heightens the sense of strategic choices.
> The "trading" involved is the solidarity part of the act where folks can
> seek assurance that they can get the strategic results desired. While there
> is no contract or guarantee involved, the fact that many people are signing
> up and being matched assures people that there are people in both safe and
> swing states acting on the strategy involved.
>
> The whole point is the assurance that one is NOT voting by oneself and that
> collectively, folks can effect the outcome.
They can't vote collectively. The ballot is secret, and each voter can do as she pleases without anyone knowing what she's done. One can vote _only_ as a solitary individual. In a large election, say more than 10,000 voters, the chance that the individual voter will cast the deciding ballot is too small to consider; therefore, under circumstances of individual voting the outcome-effect of a single vote can't be the payoff (rationally speaking).
The only reliable payoff occurs in the voter as an emotional and spiritual result, a sense of connecting oneself to one candidate or outcome or another, a process similar to rooting for a baseball team. In voting, that may well be some elaborate, even Machiavellian scheme; no doubt many people like to put themselves in a sort of smoke-filled room of the spirit, which may even include illusional elements of really supporting a candidate one didn't even cast one's vote for. I'm not criticizing this -- everyone needs their illusions -- but I prefer them at a higher and more sophisticated level. And among leftists, I certainly hope the ritual doesn't take the place of real political work (and play).