This is a response to Arbet's challenge.

Recently, I attended the annual general meeting and board election of a non-profit organization. After sitting through some long-winded speeches, I was handed an official ballot.

Wow! I get to vote for 11 officers! I get to help set the future course of the organization! I was overwhelmed by the feeling of immense power and responsibility... until I glanced up at the big board that listed the candidates. It had 11 names on it.

Huh? 11 candidates and 11 spaces on the ballot? This makes no sense! I looked around and saw people filling up their ballots thoughtfully--God knows what they were thinking or what they even had to think about. But I knew right away that my vote wouldn't change the outcome of the election. So I put my pen down and had a cup of coffee instead. It was the rational thing to do.

I won't be voting in the upcoming national election for pretty much the same reason: my vote won't change the outcome. It's true. My one vote has too little power to have any statistical significance. Here's a simple Vote Power Formula:

Power of 1 vote = 1 / Total number of voters

Democracy doesn't scale well. The power of each individual vote goes down as the number of voters go up. In a group of 40 people, every vote counts. In a group of 40,000? Not so much. Well, the Philippines has more than 40 million registered voters. 40 million! I have better odds of winning the lottery than changing the outcome of an election with my one vote.

So I don't vote, and I don't think I have to apologize for it. But some people--I call them vote zealots--foam at the mouth and say that people who don't vote are apathetic and unpatriotic. My response to them? Get off your high horse. Just because you find my reasoning unpleasant doesn't mean that I'm not right. And just because I can do basic math and you can't doesn't make me any less patriotic than you are.

Here are some trite lines that vote zealots like to use.

• "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."

  Well, since your vote has so little power, voting is practically not too different from doing nothing. If you think you can stop evil by simply stepping into a voting booth, you're delusional... unless you're Superman, in which case you've probably stepped into the wrong booth.

• "People who don't vote have no right to complain about the government."

  That's stupid. I don't vote, but I do pay taxes to the freaking government, so don't you dare tell me that I have no right to complain.

• "But why just sit there and complain? Get off your ass and vote if you want to make something happen!"

  Make what happen? See the Vote Power Formula. Hey, if voting makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside, good for you. Just don't hate me for not feeling the same way. Besides, by not voting, I'm actually giving more power to your one vote. So what the hell are you so upset about?

• "But what if everyone thinks that way?"

  You know what? I would absolutely love it if everyone thinks that way. If every single person in the country decides not to vote, then whomever I vote for automatically wins, right? Yay! Of course, the reality is that people will vote, and the number of people voting will be big enough to make my ballot less useful than a lottery ticket.

It's time to face the ugly truth: your vote doesn't count. Casting a vote is easy, but it doesn't do much. If you really want to make a difference, you'll have to do more than just vote. There's no free lunch.

The key to power in a democracy is not one vote; it's influencing other people to vote with you. Or, in the case of this country, cheating. But that's another topic for another day.