Voters

Yesterday, I heard a Talking Head say that people who are uninformed should not vote. When I hear an elitist statement like that I always want to look further into the background and in doing so I made some interesting discoveries. It seems that about a hundred years ago some sociologist was interested in group think and conducted some experiments. In one of these he was at a county carnival and there was a contest to guess the weight of an Ox and the winner would receive a prize. There were 829 entries and when the contest ended he asked if he could have the raw data. Upon analyzing the results he took an average of all the guesses and it came to 1,187 pounds and the actual weight was 1,186 pounds. He then got an expert, a man who spent his life buying and selling Oxen to guess that weight and his guess was 1,080 pounds. This experiment led to many others and in college classrooms across the county such experiments are conducted. Typically a lecture hall full of students will be shown a jar of jelly beans and asked to estimate the number. The typical result is that the average of all the guesses is very close to the actual number. What this tells me is that when millions of voters go to the polls, many of whom know very little about the issues, the average will come closer than the experts. I think this is what is meant when you hear a politician say that the American people know what’s best for the country. The statement that the uninformed should not vote assumes that the informed will make a better decision. In other words the experts know best. We have a large group of experts pushing one of these candidates and another large group pushing the other so I believe that if a voter uses their God given common sense and their life’s experiences they can come up with a vote that is just as valid and just as good as any expert The problem is not necessarily with the voters but with the choice of candidates. That is why when one candidate gets 55% of the vote it is considered a landslide victory. When you only have a choice of two then you have a 50/50 chance of winning and thus the phrase, I chose the lesser of two evils.