It may or may not be important depending on your area and electoral system (if any), but it is usually easy.

I haven’t voted in years after reading the argument that voting mainly serves to slot you into a cohort, making it easier for governments and corporations to profile you.

If it's secret ballot they literally can't do that.

Against voting:

• feels like it doesn't matter
• the choices often suck

For voting:

• it evidently does matter
• it's the most efficient way to give your political opinion some weight

Also I assume the down votes are for the following reasons:

• not voting only serves unpopular politicians and parties
• not voting being promoted through a post like this one would exacerbate this issue
• the science is pretty settled that voting matters, even if it feels like it doesn't, so making this topic debatable seems disingenuous

I assume you are being honest, so let me make this clear once again: a voting populus is what stands between a democracy and a dictatorship. Not only do dictators dismantle voting rights wherever they can, but it's also the best tool to keep them away.

"You are but a cog in the machine yet it is your decision to turn." - me, high off my ass

Arguments against:

• meaningful positive change for the common person won't be achieved via an elected candidate. If that candidate was willing and able to make some actual change, they wouldn't be on the ballot. Voting in a representative democracy is illusion of choice.

Arguments for:

• liberals (in the social definition) and conservatives view democracy at least as a tool to get what they want. Conservatives want to twist it to perpetuate and enforce their view of the world, liberals want to get increasingly slow incremental change. It is a losing battle for liberals, but there isn't enough class consciousness for actual change to happen. I'd rather side with the liberals than the conservatives.

I always vote, but I also don't think it really matters. I've stopped giving people shit for not voting, because I can't blame them. Our elections will never result in the kind of changes we need.

You're not just voting for politicians, but judges, sheriffs, school board members & many others. Often, you're choosing the lesser of 2 evils and rarely will you match policy-for-policy with your best candidate, but in what other way do you have to express your opinions?

I research all candidates on my locality's ballot and bring notes on who I plan to vote for. I sometimes can vote absentee, which is even better.

As I've found in many elections, I'm the minority. That's ok because I believe that when the polls are close, it can pull the candidates closer to my views as they try to appeal to the groups that may give them a few more votes.

In my state your polling placed does not record your party although if you vote in primaries they will ask which ballot you want. As for my opinion its simply this. For most of history the average person has gotten no say in who was in charge and how they governed. There are examples but they tend to be pretty small. Something on the scale of most modern countries. Not even close. Voting may not give you a massive say in what goes on but it does give you some. Its incredibly precious and even further the right to protest if you voice is being ignored or circumvented is an even greater thing. I like living in peace. I don't want to have to contest violently to have a say. My country is already getting a taste of what not having rights is like and losing the right to vote (or the vote becoming a truly on party pointless excersise) is not an experience I am looking to have.

I find none of these arguments convincing. You have the right to vote. Unless you're in Australia that means you can just not go vote also. That's your choice.

Voter turnout has an influence on the vote share the extremes of the political spectrum get. If you're on the extreme, you tend to go vote for your cause because you found your calling. So if enough people in the middle choose not to participate, you'll end up with difficult majorities and/or more extreme governments. The latter is also true if either extreme is convincing many of the people in the middle. And that's where tactical voting comes in. That's why I would personally lean towards a "go vote and vote for the best of the worst if nothing fits well" approach. But I wouldn't elevate this to the level of an 'electoral imperative' because it is a personal choice.

Even if it is a bad choice, I'd rather be part of a bad choice than not.

Somewhat relevant, I really enjoyed this comment on lesser evilism: https://lemmy.world/comment/20970769

And I like what DB0 has to say about electoralism, but I can't find the link I saved about it