Voting is the stone in the "stone soup" of our broken electoral system. It gives the appearance of healthy political participation, but in reality it is a substitute for it. In Nothing To Vote For, Daniel Schwindt explains why the ballot you cast each election season is really just another piece of bureaucratic paperwork, much like your taxes, except that the act of voting also has a powerful placebo effect. It gives you the reassuring feeling that your government is listening to you, and that you have some degree of control over its leaders. It is the American people's continued belief in this illusion--the illusion of the vote--that allows our government to go on ignoring us, year after year, election after election, president after president. A real assertion of your freedom--perhaps the only one you have left--involves tearing the ballot to shreds.