How much is your vote worth to you?

So here we are out of the haze that is Thanksgiving, and I'm finally catching up on all my pinned and bookmarked articles. One such article was about a survey handed down by an NYU journalism class asking students a variety of questions revolving around their right to vote.

Of all of the questions, the ones that gained the most publicity (by far) were the questions asking students what they'd settle for in return for their right to vote (forever). I'm not sure if this was multiple choice format, but many headlines read something along the lines of "Students at NYU hapy to give up their right to vote for an iPod".

This is, of course, an oversimplification, but reading the article made me think about my own right to vote. I'd always been taught that voting was perhaps the most important thing I could do as a citizen of this country (right up there with jury duty!), and for all intents and purposes this teaching stuck; I make sure I go out just about every November and cast my ballot. However, I can remember some heavy discussions about recent elections (see election, presidential, 2000), many of which brought the actual value of my singular vote into question as well.

How much is my vote really worth? For the moment, forget monetary value...that is, does my vote really matter for anything? I'd like to believe the answer is "yes", but can anyone be so sure anymore? If, then, one's vote is worth nothing, why not take a million bucks or free tuition?

The answer is simple, to me at least. I believe that the right to vote is priceless, and is one of the reasons, nay, freedoms for which people want to come live in this country. Even if my one vote doesn't sway an election, I treasure the fact that I have the ability to choose who our leaders will be and how our laws will evolve...

...at least in theory.