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The art of prophecy, Mark Twain once said, is very difficult, especially with respect to the future.

Eye on Politics & Law Lords: Why your ballot is not as meaningless as you think
Landsburg is arguing against voting, not chicken-dancing: Your presidential vote, he says, "will never matter unless the election in your state is within one vote of a dead-even tie." That, of course, is extremely unlikely. So, the negligible chance of casting the deciding ballot is outweighed by the small but certain costs of voting, like the gas you'll use and the time you'll spend.
And yet people vote anyway, by the millions. Political scientists call this conundrum "the paradox of voting," and you could stay up half the night (I just did) reading research literature on the subject.
• Why do people vote when it's so unlikely to matter? ; [ Walter Cronkite, Charles Brown and John Anderson on questions for Bush and Kerry]
• · Dan Chaon, Amy Tan, John Updike Who are novelists voting for?
• · · Why Catholics may find themselves returning to their Democratic roots in 2004
• · · · Europe's Private Affair: From prisons to hospitals to toll roads, the next chapter in the dismantling of the public sector has arrived
• · · · · Jiri Pehe: The government of Poland collapsed first, followed by the Czech government. Then the Hungarian prime minister resigned. The government of Slovakia lost its majority and is unstable. Within months, if not weeks, of realizing the long-sought goal of European Union membershipA wave of political instability surged through Central Europe