<human>: Roommate and I are having an argument. Started out fairly innocently.  We both check reddit daily and saw Canada's "Vote or shut the fuck up." posters.  Eventually this got into a discussion about whether abstaining has an affect. Ended in an argument with him walking away and going to bed. I'm not going to tell you who is which argument because it doesn't matter.

The two arguments are as follows:

Abstaining or not going to vote at all affects the vote by increasing the value of those who do vote.  By not voting, you take away from the total of people who vote.  Because this is measurable via math, it has an affect.  Additionally, your lack of vote takes away from the side that you would have voted for.

Abstaining or not voting has no affect because it has no value.  Your vote was never measured.  Therefore, you did not play a part in the calculation.  Potential votes do not have value because they never happened.

I think there might be something in the way the words are used here.  value vs. impact. That kind of thing. We kind of talked in circles about all of them and never came to any answer. "Does voting matter?" might be more appropriate.

Give me the gist of the text in a nutshell
<bot>: Does not voting matter:: Yes. math. (less voters = measurable affect via numbers or percentages) Or: No. Inherent value (potential actions have none) Value vs. Impact? How does *that* work?