28.3 Everyday Application: Why Vote? Voting is costly. If you vote in person, you have to find your polling place and often stand in line until you get to the voting booth to vote. If you vote by absentee ballot, you have to figure out how to get one and then be sure to mail it in. In both cases, you probably have to do some work figuring out who the candidates are and what the issues are.

A. Many people purposefully choose not to vote, and they often give the following reason: “I don’t think it matters.” As we will see in this exercise, they might mean one of two things by this, and they appear to be right in at least one sense.