Quote Originally Posted by Montmorency View Post
Maybe, but you shouldn't lionize voting per se. It's just one more tool.

Civic participation in general is the key thing. Otherwise, whoever manages to vote in the highest number of local, state, and federal elections for which they are eligible would be considered a paragon. Yet, by voting and then getting back to private affairs one probably would tend to accomplish less than someone who is an activist in their community and country yet never votes.

Three rules for voting:

1. Track how close the race is.
2. Evaluate the importance of the position in the context of the issues that matter.
3. If you're expecting to write in a symbolic vote, just stay away.
I think when people are forced to make a choice, there is a psychological element that spurs activism.
No studies to prove that hypothesis on my end. Only my own observations that many of the Trump/Bernie supporters were apathetic citizens who bought into the idea of an outsider. Once they committed to vote for them based on their appealing image, they began to spend their money on campaign donations and their time shitposting on the internet. Mandatory voting abuses the sunk cost fallacy that pervades everyday thinking.