by
Professor of Economics and
Director of The Smith Center, California State University, Hayward.
cbaird@csuhayward.edu
Public choice is the branch of economics that focuses on the choices that people make in politics. It uses principles of economics to explain what happens in the political marketplace. James Buchanan, at George Mason University, won the 1986 Nobel Prize in economics for his pioneering work in public choice theory. Here I want to use public choice theory to explain two troublesome phenomena in American politics - voter participation rates are very low, and those who do vote often do so without carefully weighing the merits of candidates and ballot measures.
Somewhere around fifty percent of eligible voters choose not to vote in presidential elections. Many more choose not to vote in non-presidential elections, and in local elections the voter participation rate is typically less than thirty percent. Why? What accounts for this apparent voter apathy?
Consider the costs and benefits involved in any individual's decision of whether to vote. The costs include having to register to vote and actually taking the time to vote on election day, which includes travel time and time waiting in line. While these costs are not very high in absolute terms, for most individuals they are much higher than the benefits of casting a vote.
Any one vote will determine the outcome of an election only if all the other votes cast end up in a tie. In any election, but especially in elections involving thousands of voters or more, the probability that all the votes cast, except one, will result in a tie is tiny. From the point of view of an individual trying to decide whether to vote, that probability approaches 1/n, where n is the number of potential voters. In other words, from the point of view of an individual voter, it will appear that his or her vote doesn't matter. It will not make any difference to the outcome. So if a potential voter thinks that the only benefit to voting is affecting the outcome of the election, the perceived benefit will be pretty close to zero.
Economists define rationality to mean making decisions on the basis of expected costs and expected benefits. The economists' rule for making decisions is: Take those actions for which the expected benefits outweigh the expected costs, and don't take actions for which expected benefits are less than expected costs. Given the certain costs of casting a vote and the almost zero expected benefits of doing so, it is rational for each individual to decide not to bother to vote. Public choice economists call this decision "rational abstention" (from voting).
"Motor voter" registration laws and expanded access to absentee ballots are two devices used to attempt to increase voter participation through lowering the expected costs of voting. However, these measures do nothing to increase the expected benefits of voting, so they do not affect voter participation very much at all.
Why, then, do any voters decide to vote? A big part of the answer has to do with a sense of civic duty. Many people think it is socially irresponsible not to vote. They will vote whether they expect their votes to determine electoral outcomes or not. Moreover, many people put pressure on others to vote on the grounds of civic duty. In some circles, if one fails to go to the polls he or she is scolded or even ridiculed. "If you don't vote, don't complain about the outcome" is one example of such pressure.
But do those people who vote because they think it is their civic duty cast informed votes? Do they take the time carefully to weigh the pros and cons of candidates and ballot measures before they decide how to vote? Some do, of course, again, probably because of civic duty. But many more do not. If simply casting a vote, any vote, fulfills one's sense of civic duty, it is not necessary to cast an informed vote. If one votes simply to escape social sanctions from others, it is not necessary to cast an informed vote.
Consider the expected costs and benefits as they appear to an individual deciding whether to cast an informed vote rather than a vote based on whim or tossing a coin. The expected costs are rather high. The voter would have to take the time and trouble to collect, collate and process the relevant information. The expected benefits from going through all this trouble are very small. After all, as we saw above, there is almost no chance at all that any one vote will decide the outcome of the election. So it is perfectly rational (in the economists' sense) for individuals who have decided to vote to not bother to cast informed votes. They vote on impulse, on the basis of appearances rather than reality, or on the basis of the most recent or memorable advertising message seen. Economists call this phenomenon "rational ignorance." (Ignorance does not mean stupidity, it merely means the absence of information.) Voters rationally choose not to collect the relevant information. They rationally choose to remain ignorant of the relevant information.
Why are you more likely to collect relevant information about the characteristics of different automobiles before you decide which car to buy than you are to collect relevant information about the characteristics of different candidates before you decide how to vote? The answer is simple and straight forward. The costs of collecting and processing information are similar in both cases, but in the case of the car purchase, your decision decides the outcome, while in the case of the election your decision makes almost no difference to the outcome. It is rational for you to pay more attention to decisions that matter than to do those that don't.
People who refrain from voting or from taking the time and trouble to cast informed votes are not wicked or stupid. They are exactly like the rest of us. They are neither better nor worse. They are reacting to the incentives they confront. Preaching at them is not likely to work. One easy way to increase voter participation rates would be to impose a, say, $1000 fine on eligible voters that don't vote. That will certainly increase the expected benefit of voting. Unfortunately, I cannot think of a comparably easy solution to the problem of rational ignorance. Increasing voter participation while doing nothing about rational ignorance isn't likely to do much good.