"your vote is useless." you read an editorial with this title in your local paper that says political and civic participation are pointless and serve no valuable purpose in american society. in a well-written paragraph, defend or argue against that perspective. include at least two examples of how a person can participate in a democratic society.

Please note that I do not recommend you take the following paragraph completely as your own.  Instead, I recommend that you take ideas from it to use in your own writing (i.e. write your paragraph in your own words).  :)

The paragraph begins here:

With the current electoral system, it is hard to impossible for America's voters to actually make a change.  First, no one vote will actually swing an election.  There is almost no election in history that would have a different result had one more person or even one more family gone out to vote for the losing candidate.  In addition, the electoral college goes further to prevent an average vote from counting nationally.  In many states, one political party has a huge and consistent majority.  As a result, even if nationally, the vote is close, your vote for a Democrat in a state that is 70% Republican (or vise versa) has no effect.  In summary, it is impossible to use your vote to actually change the outcome of an election, making the average person's vote relatively useless.  Instead, what one who actually wants to make a difference should do is encourage support for a candidate in any number of ways.  This can result in said candidate gaining a larger number of votes, and is the main method of participation in the democratic society that is in reality meaningful.