Suppose that I go into the voting booth with a pair of dice, and use them to decide who to vote for. Am I morally correct in this approach?

If a voter is reacting emotionally to propaganda, without taking the time to understand the real story, is this much different from rolling dice?

>If a voter is reacting emotionally to propaganda, without taking the time to understand the real story, is this much different from rolling dice?

To understand the "real story", I'd trust someone who had paid attention to what the parties have done over decades, reading news and analysis, over someone who merely read a book on political philosophy at some point.

My list wasn't meant to be exhaustive. Of course you're right, that an understanding of history and who the actors are is important as well.

However, to prefer that point of view is to exclude other possibilities outside of the status quo.

For example, the Republicans were pretty new back in the mid-1800's, with Abraham Lincoln being the first Republican elected president. If my vote were based on past performance of the parties, I'd only have considered Democrats and Whigs.

And if you're following along, you'll notice that the President credited with freeing the slaves was a Republican. How did that happen? Over time, the positions of the American parties have changed quite drastically. In the early 1900s, it was the Democrats who were backing big business. but the civil rights movement shuffled things significantly. Similarly, the (American) definition of "liberal" has changed significantly since the late 1800s. Back then, a liberal's ideas would correspond more closely to today's Libertarians or perhaps a small-government Republican.

My point here is that history can only have limited utility. First, by definition, it excludes new ideas. Second, the parts of the players shift so that long-term comparisons become problematic.

A person reacting to emotional propaganda is much worse then someone voting by dice.

A large group of people voting by dice do not effect the out of the election. A group of people reacting to emotional propaganda may very well vote all the same way and effect the election for irrational reasons.

The group of people who decide to self select themselves out of the voting process by ignorance are allowing the group swayed by propaganda to have a larger control of the vote.

Therefore do to the above mentioned effect and the Dunning-Kruger effect it is only rational not to vote if have evidence that your vote will do more damage then a random vote.

Yeah, reading books is terribly elitist.

That's not what was stated. Suggesting one is ignorant of how politics works, and shouldn't vote, unless one has read a book on political philosophy is, absolutely, elitist.