Tuesday’s elections will change our lives. Never believe your vote doesn’t matter

Last August, more than 920,000 Kansas voters were asked if a fundamental right to abortion should be removed from the state’s constitution. Nearly 60% of voting Kansans said no.

The health and privacy rights of women in Kansas are protected today because voters made their voices heard. Had “yes” prevailed, women would have lost those protections. Every vote mattered.

That’s why you should vote this Tuesday, and every time the polls are open.

For several years, some analysts have exhausted mathematics and utility theory to argue the opposite: that voting is a fundamentally irrational act. The chance that any one vote will change the results in an election are next to zero, they claim. Why, then, would anyone take the time to cast a ballot?

It’s fun to study these esoteric arguments, if you’re a candidate, or a political scientist, or a reporter. For everyone else, let’s be clear: The claim that voting is irrational is poppycock.

We are not merely the sum of our individual decisions and desires. We exist with others, in the world, where self-interest is affected by collective choices. Abortion rights are a good example, but health care, education, the economy, transportation, justice, peace and a long list of other concerns are involved as well.

How do we make these collective choices?

The speed limit on the street outside your home is 25 mph. You may think it should be faster (or slower), but you are not allowed to install your own speed limit sign, and your neighbor isn’t either. To think otherwise only invites dangerous chaos.

Instead, we elect people to make that decision. Laws and regulations are studied, discussed, reviewed and ultimately enacted by public bodies — city councils, legislatures, boards, commissions. Courts compare laws with legal standards. We solve public policy disagreements together.

But there’s an essential escape clause. If you don’t like the decisions others make, you can try to change them. You can try to replace the errant decision-makers. You can convince neighbors to change their minds. You can ask a court to measure the policy against other laws.

You ask for a show of hands. That’s what voting is all about, and why your hand is equal to every other hand when the question is put: Self-government is our way, and the best way, to make public choices.

Some rights are inalienable, which means they can’t be changed by others. Almost all other decisions, though, rest in the hands of all of us, which means each of us.

Americans will wake up Wednesday to a different world. No one should doubt that lives will be different if Republicans regain control of Congress. Similarly, a continued Democratic majority would move the nation in a different direction.

That’s true at the state and local level, too. Your vote will help decide if recreational marijuana can be purchased in Missouri. You’ll help decide if Kansas City will borrow money for public swimming pools. You’ll help choose legislators and executives who approach problems in very different ways.

Nothing is more ridiculous than a claim that the parties are all alike, that political choices are false, that voting is a waste of time. Both parties can be wrong on some things, and right on others. Candidates, too. But elections always matter, in real ways and in real time.

We urge our readers to vote. Make no mistake: Tuesday’s results will change the way you live. When you vote, you help decide what that change will look like.

This story was originally published November 4, 2022 at 6:00 AM with the headline "Tuesday’s elections will change our lives. Never believe your vote doesn’t matter."