This is a crappy attitude. If anything, you should be motivating MORE people to vote.
Let's take Florida in 2008 as an example. In 2008, the voter turnout among the voting age population was just 58.5% of a voting population of 14.353 million people[1]. In the 2008 election, Obama received 51% of the vote, and McCain received 48%, with Obama beating McCain by roughly 240,000 votes[2]. That amounts to only 1.6% of the voter population. If turnout was higher by just 2%, and Republican voters formed most of that increase, then McCain would've won Florida. Granted, that wouldn't have given McCain the election, but it would've changed the results in Florida.
Of course, increasing voter turnout is something we're always trying to achieve, but the trend in the past decade is of increasing voter turnout each election. Who knows, maybe 200,000 extra votes will make Florida go Republican in 2012 instead of voting Obama again. But telling people not to vote because one vote won't make a difference is not going to help increase turnout.
Let's take Florida in 2008 as an example. In 2008, the voter turnout among the voting age population was just 58.5% of a voting population of 14.353 million people[1]. In the 2008 election, Obama received 51% of the vote, and McCain received 48%, with Obama beating McCain by roughly 240,000 votes[2]. That amounts to only 1.6% of the voter population. If turnout was higher by just 2%, and Republican voters formed most of that increase, then McCain would've won Florida. Granted, that wouldn't have given McCain the election, but it would've changed the results in Florida.
Of course, increasing voter turnout is something we're always trying to achieve, but the trend in the past decade is of increasing voter turnout each election. Who knows, maybe 200,000 extra votes will make Florida go Republican in 2012 instead of voting Obama again. But telling people not to vote because one vote won't make a difference is not going to help increase turnout.
[1] http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0398.p...
[2] http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/state.php?fips=12=2002=0=...