zach wickHave you ever felt like your vote doesn't matter? Or wondered if elections are just about choosing the lesser of two evils? You're not alone--but what if I told you that the real political power lies where you least expect it: your local government?
The power of a single vote In the United States, there are between three and five levels of government for citizens in a particular geographic area. Listed in order of decreasing geographic area, they are:
- federal
- state
- county*
- township*
- municipality
*In some geographies, counties and townships are blurred into "parishes".
Votes have power in and of themselves. As American individualist anarchist Lysander Spooner wrote in No Treason, "...under the theory of government now prevailing, the ballot either signifies a bullet or it signifies nothing. And no one can consistently use a ballot, unless he intends to use a bullet, if the latter should be needed to ensure submission to the former" (2017, p. 38). Spooner wrote these words in 1870 to critique the Union's cause in the American Civil War and how it converted the United States federal government from one based on consent to one based on governmental force, while applauding the resulting abolition of chattel slavery.
An upper bound on how much power is contained in a single vote can be calculated by assuming that if all of the electorate's political power is constituted in all of the votes cast, then the power of a single vote is 1/(total number of votes cast).
In the 2020 Presidential election, 158,429,631 votes were cast. That means each vote represented just 1/158429631 of the total power. And that’s before even considering how the Electoral College further dilutes the power of a single vote. Voting in a presidential election is akin to adding a single drop into an ocean of drops; the ocean's tides, currents, and impact remain unchanged by adding a single drop.
In the 2018 Ohio gubernatorial election, 4,305,871 votes were cast. The upper bound for how much political power each gubernatorial vote is 1/4305871. That's still an incredibly small amount, but it is about 37x more political power per vote than in the presidential election two years later. In state elections, casting your single vote has the same effect of adding a drop of water into the bathtub--still not a sizable enough contribution to affect the water level, but at least enough that a bloc of voters can make the water rise.
Voting at the local level is like adding a single drop to a shot glass. It doesn't take too many drops to make the water level rise and the addition of each drop can be accurately measured. I live in the Village of Carey, Ohio. As of the last census (2020), we have 3565 residents. In the November 2023 general election, our mayorship was contested. There were 1062 votes cast for mayor. Continuing our naïve upper bound calculation, each vote for Carey's Mayor had 1/1062th of the political power present in the electorate. This is 4054x more power than in the Ohio gubernatorial race and 149,180x more power per vote than in the presidential election.
Carey's mayoral candidates differed by only four votes - 533 to 529. Imagine those four Carey citizens standing in line to vote. Two have a sudden change of heart, deciding to cast their vote for the other candidate. Those two voters' choices now mean the difference between electing a mayor—or having to flip a coin to break the tie (In Ohio, a tie in a village mayoral election can be broken by any method the tied candidates agree on - flipping a coin, rock-paper-scissors, or even a game of horseshoes). A third voter changing their vote decides the election for the other candidate. Clearly, in local races, every vote matters and a single vote can all the difference in the world.
How one person can change everything in your community But here’s where things get exciting: at the local level, where every vote holds more weight, "one person, one vote" isn’t just a theory. It’s the reality that shapes your community. At the local level, each vote carries more of the electorate's power than in any other level of government. This makes sense since each vote is part of a smaller total number of votes for smaller geographic areas with lower levels of government.
In local politics, a single person can have an outsized impact on how others cast their votes. In Carey for instance, a candidate can visit every single house and business in the village over 2-3 days. It is left as an exercise for the reader to determine how long it would take to visit every residence and business in a state or country. In a smaller electorate, it is also more likely that a greater number of the voters will personally know a candidate. This makes voting between two local candidates less choosing between the candidate's stances on divisive issues and more a selection of which candidate is likely to perform the duties of the elected position better (which feels like the way we ought to decide between candidates).
Outside of the election cycle, a single person can have a greater impact on the operation of their local government than they can on their township, county, state, or federal government. Local municipalities' public meetings happen near the homes of the electorate. In Carey, every village resident lives within a 15-minute walk or a 3-minute drive of where our local government holds their public meetings. Each member of the public who attends such a meeting also has the right to speak for two minutes on any topic they wish. While every level of government has public meetings, only the lower levels of government offer the public an opportunity to speak directly to their elected officials in those meetings. The federal government's legislative bodies would crawl to a halt if any resident of the country who showed up to their public meetings was given two minutes to speak.
Governmental power's impact on your daily life Looking at the power dynamic between individuals and their levels of government from the government's point of view, the federal government has the least impact on the day-to-day life of its citizens. On specific issues, the federal government may in fact have the most impact (such as any rights enshrined in the Bill of Rights), but when speaking generally, a local government has the most impact on the day-to-day life of its citizens.
Federal, state, county, or township governments don't have the authority to tell citizens where they may park their vehicles on their property. However, a local government can pass a zoning ordinance stipulating that vehicles may only be parked in driveways or back and side yards so many feet away from adjacent properties.
Only a local government can pass a law requiring residents to keep their grass under 6 inches tall - a federal government that attempted to pass such a law would be laughed at all the way to the courts, which would almost assuredly rule such a law as overstepping federal authority.
Seizing your own power If you want to see real change, start where your vote matters most. Your local government impacts your life every single day—from where you park to how your neighborhood looks to how your taxes are appropriated.
Don’t wait for someone else to step up—because change begins with you.
Imagine walking into your local polling station, knowing that your single vote could be the one that tips the scale. The mayoral candidates stand neck-and-neck, with the fate of your community hanging in the balance. Your voice, your choice, could determine the future of your town.
Change doesn't happen by itself. It starts with a single person—someone who cares enough to cast a vote, to attend a meeting, to speak up for what’s right. Be that person. Start today, and watch your community transform because of you. Add your drop of water and help your community rise to the pinnacle of what it can be.
References Spooner, L. (2017). No Treason: The Constitution of No Authority. Pantianos Classics.