What's the Point?

As I am sure everyone has realized by now, it is ELECTION DAY!  This isn't news to anyone, hopefully.  I was extremely excited about voting in this election.  Until recently I was completely ambivalent and mildly disdainful of politics, but this circus (ahem, I mean election) has really reeled me in to the point of obsession.  I feel really strongly about the issues at hand and the candidates involved.  Literally, no joke, I have had dreams about the candidates in various scenarios for the past FOUR nights in a row.  Yes, I think that's just as sad as you probably do.  

Anyway, for those of you that are all electioned out (I think even the newscasters are getting sick of the spin, everything that can be said about the candidates pretty much has been rehashed to the point of mush), I thought it would be interesting to discuss the voting itself.  Why do we get excited about casting our ballot?  Don't get me wrong, I'm not criticizing people for being excited, I was in line at 5:30 this morning to vote, and I was pretty pumped about it. But, do we really think our one vote is going to determine the outcome?  No, a single vote isn't going to make a difference, even in battleground states.  But we realize that if everyone thought like that, the whole system would be out of whack, so, consciously or otherwise, we realize the importance of exercising our right to go out there and build a powerful force out of individually insignificant actions.  I am the ultimate over-analyzer, so I find things like this fun, just wanted to share a post I found with some really interesting commentary on how voting behaviors are affected by psychology and a little bit of probability and economic theory: Why do we vote?

So, that's enough of my babble, happy Election Day, everyone!