You ROCK Umbra and you are so right.  At least if you vote you have a right to speak your mind publicly for or against whoever or whatever gets voted in.  Thanks!

There is also a vicious spiral to avoid.

If people who care about the environment don't vote, there will be no environmentally minded votes to capture. As such, rational politicians will ignore environmental issues or court people who do vote and who take more short term perspectives on things like resource use and sustainability.

Go to Zeitgeist on the internet and watch... it might give you ideas on why vote or not vote - or at least make you aware of what is going on up there.

i mean, really?  maybe he's right, maybe it doesn't matter...but what if it does?  that's what i'd say to him - what if it does?  does he know 100%, beyond a shadow of a doubt?  i don't think so...

what if it does?  why not take the 20 minutes out of his day to go to his local voting booth, see people from his neighborhood and cast his vote.

less than half of our country votes (on average) and christ, does it show...it's the raindrop effect:  one raindrop might not seem like much, but when you put millions of 'em together - hello downpour!

there's a reason why people have been (and continue to be) excluded from the right to vote (black people, women, non-land owners, felons, poor people, etc.)  why would the people in power work so hard to exclude people from something that "doesn't matter"?  people have fought fiercely and literally died to have this right that your friend so casually dismisses.

and if he still doesn't vote?  anytime he tries to talk politics to you or complains about the state of the environment, etc. - just ask "did you vote?  no?  well then, you do not have the right to bitch about it."  

voting is the minimum we as citizens can do to participate in our communities.  

Even though one educated vote is erased by an uneducated vote, Kurt Vonnegut averred in one of his books, maybe Piano Player, "you vote for the record", you vote for your conscience. Our democracy is a joke: the majority of the populous is uninformed and have a C average. And their vote is equal to someone's who has spent hours investigating the issue and reading through truths and lies. There is a better way, but the majority is not intelligent enough to see it.

I don't agree with the "system" either - especially if your friend is referring to the Electoral College.  However, i was stunned to realize that, along with my voter registration and party preference (or lack thereof), my publicly-available record shows whether or not i have voted recently - for every year!  No, it doesn't say for whom i voted, but it does show every primary, school or parks funding, and November election in which i have voted.

Therefore, when i stand up in the council meeting or write to my representative, i can say (and know that they can check), "I'm an environmentalist and I VOTE every chance i get."

I will not be part of the problem.  If the planet goes to hell I want to be able to say that I didn't contribute to the problem.  I wanna be able to say I did what I could. That includes voting this year, for the first time.  Maybe my vote won't change a thing, but I can go on feeling good about my contributions to this society.

I would recommend to vote third party, both the Republican and Democratic Parties mistreat this democracy we have, both minimizing the importance of the Independent Party. You are sending a message that you vote, and you do not approve of either Dem. nor Rep. parties. I will keep it simple and end here.

I would recommend instituting instant-runoff voting (IRV) in your state first.  THEN you can vote third-party to your heart's content ... without the nagging suspicion that you're simply wasting your vote under our de facto two-party system.  The major parties count on the latter.  (How else to explain bizarre developments like conservative Repugs sending money to the Nader campaign?)

Think.  This doesn't have to be an either-or, between-the-horns dilemma.  Do the hard work of implementing IRV and you get the best of both worlds.  Vote for your true first choice first (what a concept!!).  If he/she doesn't get a majority of the votes, then your second choice does.

It almost makes too much sense.