Should you even vote?

The first debate is three weeks away. It’ll focus on domestic policy, full of facts and serious policy points, and it won’t make a lick of difference on election day, the experts will tell you-especially if it’s packed with facts and serious policy points.

Because while everybody says they want facts, most people don’t vote based on facts.

Psychologists have overwhelming evidence that we tend to believe stuff without knowing or even caring why. And despite the familiar retort that says “facts are stubborn things,” the fact is that facts are malleable. In fact, it’s our beliefs that are stubborn things.

Politics is less and less about trying to persuade people to change their minds, and more focused on turning out the voters who are already on your side. And, when possible, discouraging or even turning away the voters who aren’t on your side.

It makes some people cynical enough that they boycott the whole process and don’t vote at all. But here’s the problem with not voting. Your vote in November may not decide the election, but it puts you in the category of “Likely Voter.”

That makes you important between elections, which is when the politicians make their actual decisions. Between elections is when pollsters try to find out what specific issues are important to people, and when a poll shows that a critical mass of Likely Voters want a tax cut, or a jobs program, or more oil drilling, politicians listen.

Likely voters are pretty influential. And you can’t be one, unless you’ve voted.

If you don’t vote, or aren’t registered, as far as the decision-makers are concerned, it’s like you were never born.

Dave Ross Commentary: