I don't understand why people think an individual vote changes anything. I don't mean this as an insult, I just don't understand by what mechanism my vote matters. To be clear, I am not saying you shouldn't vote, simply that one persons vote is a neutral act.

I assume that if I vote in an election my vote will literally be counted; the votes for one candidate will go from 100,000 to 100,001. In tiny elections, it is possible, not likely, for a single vote to change a result. However, arguing for a system from its top 0.1% best case scenario is a bit disingenuous. In 99.9% of elections, it does not come down to one vote.

I have also been told I should just choose the candidate that is closest to my beliefs or even put in a blank ballet. In the US, a 3rd-party candidate will not win any non-local election; in other countries, I understand that it is different, but I can't speak from personal experience. And its not like I would ever choose any of the main party candidates; some are much worse than others, but none represent my beliefs. My understanding of this idea is that what is being valued is the performance of representation, not my actual representation in the system. 'The medium is the message', or who you vote for does not matter, what matters is that you vote.

I've heard people say something to the effect of 'if you don't vote, you have no right to complain about the political system'. This idea ignores the fact that not voting is an explicitly political act. I am engaging with the system by refusing to play what I perceive to be a rigged game.

But its not like the political system changes whether I vote or not; its not like anyone can know if I voted or not, unless I tell them or wear one of those 'I voted' stickers. I've heard people argue that if everyone thought this way, then the OTHER SIDE would win. But other people's decision to vote or not isn't my responsibility.

Is there something I am missing?

EDIT:

I changed my formatting to be more clear and edited the text, as a few responses seem to have missed some of my points.

Voting is determinative, especially where the constituency is precisely known, as with a legislature, executive council, panel of judges, gerrymandered electoral district, defined organisational membership. If you know, with high precision, who is voting, then you can determine or influence how they vote, or what the outcome will be. Which lends a certain amount of predictability (often considered as good), but also of a tyranny of the majority. This is especially true where long-standing majorities can be assured: legislatures, boards of directors, courts, ethnic or cultural majorities.

The result is a very high-stakes game in establishing majorities, influencing critical constituencies, packing courts, and gaming parliamentary and organisational procedures. But is this the best method --- both in terms of representational eqquity and of decision and goverrnance quality?

Hands down the most fascinating article I've read over the past decade is Michael Schulson's "How to choose? When your reasons are worse than useless, sometimes the most rational choice is a random stab in the dark", in Aeon. The essay, drawing heavily on Peter Stone, The Luck of the Draw: The Role of Lotteries in Decision Making (2011), which I've not read, mostly concerns decisions under uncertainty and of the risk of bad decisions. It seems to me that it also applies to periods of extreme political partisanship and division. An unlikely but possible circumstance, I'm sure....

Under many political systems, control is binary and discrete. A party with a majority in a legislature or judiciary, or control of the executive, has absolute control, barring procedural exceptions. Moreover, what results is a politics of veto power, where the bloc defining a controlling share of votes effectively controls the entire organisation. It may not be able to get its way, but it can determine which of two pluralities can reach a majority. Often in favour of its own considerations, overtly or covertly --- this is an obvious engine of corruption.

(This is why "political flexibility" often translates to more effective power than a hardline orthodoxy.)

One inspiration is a suggestion for US Supreme Court reform: greatly expand the court, hear more cases, but randomly assign a subset of judges to each case.[1] A litigant cannot know what specific magistrates will hear a case, and even a highly-packed court could produce minority-majority panels.

Where voting can be fuzzed, the majority's power is made less absolute, more uncertain, and considerations which presume that such a majority cannot be assured, one hopes, would lead to a more inclusive decisionmaking process. Some specific mechanisms;

• All members vote, but a subset of votes are considered at random. The larger the subset, the more reliably the true majority wins.
• A subset of members votes. As in the court example above.
• An executive role (presidency, leader, chairmanship) is rotated over time.
• For ranged decisions (quantitative, rather than yes/no), a value is selected randomly based on weighted support.

Concensus/majority decisionmaking tends to locked and unrepresentitive states. Fuzzing might better unlock these and increase representation.

Notes

1. A selection of articles on Supreme Court reforms and expansion, from an earlier G+ post: https://web.archive.org/web/20190117114110/https://plus.google.com/104092656004159577193/posts/9btDjFcNhg1 Also, notably, court restructuring or resizing has been practiced: "Republicans Oppose Court Packing (Except When They Support It)".
   • Jonathan Turley at WashPo, suggesting 19 justices:
     https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-fate-of-health-care-shouldnt-come-down-to-9-justices-try-19/2012/06/22/gJQAv0gpvV_story.html
   • Robert W. Merry at The National Interest, agreeing:
     https://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/court-packing-revisited-7123
   • Michael Hiltzik at the LA Times:
     http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-scotus-20180629-story.html
   • Jacob Hale Russell, at Time, suggests 27 justices:
     http://time.com/5338689/supreme-court-packing/
   • And Glen Harlan Reynolds, at USA Today ups the ante to 59 justices:
     https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2018/07/02/make-supreme-court-lots-bigger-59-justices-more-like-america-column/749326002/
   • Dylan Matthews at Vox, pointing at several other suggestions:
     https://www.vox.com/2018/7/2/17513520/court-packing-explained-fdr-roosevelt-new-deal-democrats-supreme-court
   • From the left, Todd N. Tucker at Jacobin:
     https://jacobinmag.com/2018/06/supreme-court-packing-fdr-justices-appointments
   • Scott Lemieux at The New Republic:
     https://newrepublic.com/article/148358/democrats-prepare-pack-supreme-court
   • Ian Millhiser at Slate:
     http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2015/02/fdr_court_packing_plan_obama_and_roosevelt_s_supreme_court_standoffs.html
   • Zach Carter at Huffington Post:
     https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/hey-democrats-pack-the-court_us_5b33f7a8e4b0b5e692f3f3d4
   • A pseudonymous piece by "@kept_simple" at The Outline:
     https://theoutline.com/post/5126/pack-the-court-judicial-appointment-scalia-is-in-hell
   • And a dissenting opinion from Justice Thomas Josh Blackman at National Review:
     https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/07/supreme-court-nominee-court-packing-not-feasible/
   • As well as some alarm klaxon sounding from The Daily Caller:
     https://dailycaller.com/2018/06/28/democrats-pack-supreme-court/

In France, we all need two identity documents to vote, a voter's card and a national identity card (or passport). It is not at all controversial, even at the far left of the political spectrum. In America, people say it's voter suppression.

The USA in particular has one of the lowest voter turnouts and the lowest registration levels of most developed countries.

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/05/21/u-s-voter-turnout-trails-most-developed-countries/

In 2016 only 61% of eligible citizens voted and only 70% were registered.

https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/voting-and-registration/p20-580.html

And that was a good year.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_turnout#Trends_of_decreasing_turnout_since_the_1980s