You’ve probably seen the standard pro voting argument. Roughly it goes like this: the difference between the two candidates can be worth $X trillion, your chances of influencing the election are 1 in Y million, therefore the value of voting is some obscene amount like several hundred thousand dollars.

I argue that endorsing this argument entails biting several unpleasant bullets.

1. Imagine a fee of $1000 was required to vote. Would you pay it? Conversely, if someone offered you $1000 to not vote, would you take it? If the above argument is taken seriously then you should, but I suspect many who agree with the above would not pay. If you would, how high would that number need to be to stop you?

2. Imagine Omega deposits $10 million in your bank account. You’re just finalizing your retirement plans when Omega shows up at your door. He tells you that, with certainty , $hated-candidate will win. He gives you a button, and tells that if you press it, he will intervene and cause $slightly-less-hated-candidate to win instead, with certainty. However, pressing the button will cause the $10 million to vanish from your account. If you would not press the button, this places an upper bound on the value of your vote: if the chance of influencing the election is 1 in 10 million then voting can’t be worth more than $1 to you. If you would give up the money, how much money would you not give up? $100 million? Whatever you come up tells you something about your valuation. (Note that since utility of money decreases, this actually over counts your valuation of a vote in terms of money. $10 million is less than a million times better than $10.)