In principle, I agree with your point that the concept of wasted votes seems pretty incoherent.
In practice, I have frequently felt somewhat bad over having voted for someone in a way which feels like it “wasted” my vote. Despite knowing that this makes no sense.
So I know this is a common feeling, but I have never felt that way. To provide some intuition for the other way, consider the concept of the popular mandate: when a President or Governor in the United States wins by a large margin, they have extra political capital for driving their agenda.
Importantly this political capital is spent among other elites, so at the very least other elected officials are prone to treat it as significant.
It seems obvious to me that voting is an information-bearing signal, but something must be amiss here because I appear to be in a small minority and without agreement from experts.
In principle, I agree with your point that the concept of wasted votes seems pretty incoherent.
In practice, I have frequently felt somewhat bad over having voted for someone in a way which feels like it “wasted” my vote. Despite knowing that this makes no sense.
I’m guessing something-something-tribal-instincts-that-want-to-place-you-in-the-same-coalition-as-the-guys-with-the-most-power-something-something.
So I know this is a common feeling, but I have never felt that way. To provide some intuition for the other way, consider the concept of the popular mandate: when a President or Governor in the United States wins by a large margin, they have extra political capital for driving their agenda.
Importantly this political capital is spent among other elites, so at the very least other elected officials are prone to treat it as significant.
It seems obvious to me that voting is an information-bearing signal, but something must be amiss here because I appear to be in a small minority and without agreement from experts.