Election Law: Shlemazl's Amendment
I can't vote in either local or national elections in Canada. I am not good enough because I am not a Canadian citizen. However I am good enough to pay taxes. Last year I paid $8 000 in property tax, $25 000 in federal tax, $11 000 in provincial tax and I guess ~$15000 in provincial and federal goods taxes.
Somehow it does not seem fair that one does not get a chance to select people who are going to spend his money. Equally it does not seem fair that I can vote in the British elections or that Canadians that have been living overseas for the last 20 years can vote in the Canadian election. I therefore propose Shlemazl's Amendment to the Election law:
Whoever pays taxes in a country gets to vote for people that will spend these taxes.
Note for Canadians readers: Yes, I am aware that they don't check in Canada whether you have a right to vote or not. I know that thousdands of non-citizens vote in Canadian elections. Call me sentimental, but I don't like doing something I am not supposed to do.
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11 comments:
I like that law. I think it makes more sense as people who pay the price should determine how the money is spent.
Shlemazl -
FWIW, don't worry...your vote will never tip an election anyway.
Marc,
You could be right, particularly that Mrs Shlemazl always votes differently just for the hell of it. Still, as Thomas says, my law makes sense.
Shlemazl -
I like your law from a moral perspective, though I would probably not vote for it because my vote is meaningless.
Here's a pre-written piece that I wrote on the insignificance of a single vote:
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If you assume the best case, where there are only two other voters, and each of them has a 50% chance of voting for each candidate, then there is a 50% chance that the vote will be a tie, and that you will be the tie-breaker.
That is, there are 4 combinations of possible votes, of which only 2 are ties:
Voter A: 1 1 2 2
Voter B: 1 2 1 2
So, in the very best case, you've got only a 50-50 chance of influencing an election with only two other voters.
If the population bias, instead of being 50% for each candidate, is anything else (say 40/60), the odds of your casting the deciding vote is less than 50% -- in this 40/60 case, it's 48%.
Again, that is with only 2 other voters.
Keeping the population bias at 50% for each of two candidates, your probability of influencing the election is as follows:
4 other voters: 37.5%
10 other voters: 25%
20 other voters: 18%
40 other voters: 13%
80 other voters: 9%
160 other voters: 6%
Beyond that, Excel seems incapable of calculating my formulas. BUT with 160 voters, if the population bias is 60/40 instead of 50/50, then the odds of you being a tie-breaker falls from 6% to 0.2%. With a 70/30 population bias, your odds become 0.001%. And that is with only 160 other voters.
Care to guess what your odds are of tipping an 6,500,000-voter election with a 63/37 population bias? The answer is here:
"...my chance of casting the deciding vote in New York is about one in 10 to the 200,708th power. I have a better chance of winning the Powerball jackpot 7,400 times in a row than of affecting the election's outcome. Which makes it pretty hard to see why I should vote.
"Even for the most passionate partisan, it's hard to argue that voting is a good use of your time. Instead of waiting in line to vote, you could wait in line to buy a lottery ticket, hoping to win $100 million and use it to advance your causes—and all with an almost indescribably greater chance of success than you'd have in the voting booth."
That is a very well justified argument. I take it you are a mathematician rather than a physicist?
What troubles me with this argument is that if everyone who could count were to take this approach, communists would rule the the world again.
Voting nowadays seems to be about who feels stronger about an election. If you don't then the opposing party (e.g. PETA) will win. When you feel sufficiently strong about something to cast your vote you can safely assume that a lot of other people feel the same.
OT but... WTF! $8 000 property tax! If I compare that to mine proportionately that would make your home worth around $720 000!
Is this a lot for Toronto?
You must have a very high mill rate. Maybe you should really move out West! :P
Chris,
Not bad. It was 800K 2 years ago. It's not a lot in the part of Oakville where I live. I would love to move somewhere with proper winters, but Mrs Shlemazl disagrees.
Shlemazl -
Don't worry about everyone taking my approach; I have yet to convince anyone to change their mind about voting. It's like trying to change someone's religion.
Also, the "what if everyone did it" argument can be used to discredit almost anything. For instance, what if everyone showed up at Tim Hortons at the same time? There would be a fire hazard, and they would run out of Tim Tarts. Fortunately, we don't have to worry about that because it won't happen.
Also, as long as you have the right to vote, then all should be OK. That is, as the number of voters decline, there would be more incentive for others to have their vote "count".
How's this for a money-saving idea: Send ballots to 500 randomly-selected voters. If there isn't a decisive majority, then send out a few more. And if there still isn't a majority, call it a "tie" and let the two victors both win.
Marc,
1. Everyone does show up at Tim Hortons at the same time ~7am.
2. What you say is O'K when it doesn't matter who comes to power, which is often the case in the US.
3. If the choice were between PETA and Maggie Thatcher, wouldn't you want to cast your ballot?
Shlemazl -
1. I was actually referring to half of Ontario showing up at a single Tim Hortons -- but then, maybe you were too.
3. I would probably behave irrationally and vote for Lady Thatcher.
Shlemazal is dying to vote because he wants to prove antisemitic and not only opinion that Jews control everything in the world.
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