An interesting article in last week’s New York Times Magazine asked, why do people vote? The odds of anyone’s vote changing an election’s outcome are virtually nil (unless one happens to be on the US Supreme Court, that is), so why does anyone bother?
The Swiss recently switched to a vote-by-mail system – and they did it gradually, district by district, enabling social scientists to get a good measure of how such a system changes voting behavior. Never again would any Swiss voter have to tromp to the polls during a rainstorm; the cost of casting a ballot had been lowered significantly. An economic model would therefore predict voter turnout to increase substantially. Is that what happened? Not at all. In fact, voter turnout often decreased, especially in smaller cantons and in the smaller communities within cantons. This finding may have serious implications for advocates of Internet voting – which, it has long been argued, would make voting easier and therefore increase turnout. But the Swiss model indicates that the exact opposite might hold true. The theory the article suggests is that in countries in which there’s a strong belief that voting is a civic obligation, people vote so that other people can see them voting. So a vote-by-mail option, by making it less necessary for people to be seen voting to get social credit for voting, actually reduces the reason for people to vote. If that theory is correct, then what policy – short of manditory voting, which I think is a good idea that will never happen here (if we can make taxpaying and jury duty manditory duties of citizens, why not voting?) – should we use to encourage voting? Perhaps the “I voted” stickers should be made of nicer material and be more prominent.
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Make your ballot a lottery ticket.
This will boost your unfathomable desire to see the unmotivated increase their participation in the process.
As a related short rant, the next idiot who says “If you didn’t vote, you don’t have a right to bitch” is going to get smacked upside the heard with the full OED.
Nowhere in the US constitution does it say thatthe first ammendment applies only to voters.
What is it with idiots who confuse “I don’t think you have a moral standing in this argument” with “have a right to make an argument”.
Grrrr.
Look, the USA allows people to choose not to vote, because not voting is a form of political expression. If I don’t like the political candidates out there, I don’t have to vote. I don’t have to go into a voting booth, and put nothing down. It’s actualy a right not to vote in the USA.
short of mandatory voting, which I think is a good idea that will never happen here
Why? My guess, which I have absolutely no fieldwork to back up, is that people who aren’t motivated to vote probably aren’t motivated to become informed enough to cast a vote based on a rational and intelligent analysis of the issues of the day. If we start forcing people to vote, or even spend a lot of effort trying to motivate people to vote, we’ll end up with more voters that will be voting on the basis of emotion and sound bites.
I think the system is fine the way it is. It’s easy to register to vote; in fact, I personally favor requiring registrants to prove that they are citizens before they are allowed to register to vote. Here in Illinois you have to prove your identity and citizenship status by showing a birth certificate or passport in order to get a drivers’ license, and I’ve not heard anyone complain that that’s too onerous a requirement. There’s generally plenty of polling places, and if you can’t get a ride to the polls, call any of the major parties and they’ll either get you there or get you an absentee ballot.
Hey, Josh, I have to confess I’ve said that myself. But I mean it in a moral sense, not a legal one. The First Amendment certainly applies to all Americans, whether or not they vote. But it seems to me that if you want everyone else to do their duty, you ought to do your own.
When I was a Boy Scout, back in the 60’s and 70’s, we used to run “Get out the Vote” campaigns. The local Cub Scout Packs and Boy Scout Troops would put door hangers reminding people about election day and the local polling places on all the front doors of the houses, etc., in the area.
When I became a Scouter (an adult leader), I saw that we didn’t do that anymore. When I inquired, I was told that it was now viewed as a partisan activity. The Republicans would claim that GOTV in a urban setting favored the Democrats, and vice versa for rural settings. The BSA is forbidden from getting engaged in political and partisan activities, so they had to drop it. Something to think about when you consider planning a GOTV effort.
Here in Chicago local businesses give discounts to people with voting receipts, and I’ve heard that in some districts the receipt entitles the bearer to a free fifth of whiskey from the local alderman. God bless this city.
This is just my personal belief, but not voting is as much an expression of political dissatisfaction as voting can be. Both choices are equally valid under the constitution.
This problem is not that people aren’t voting, but why the aren’t venturing to the polls. In my case, I always vote even though I realize that my single vote doesn’t mean that my single voice will be heard. I do this out of my own belief that if I want anything to change then I need to begin that process with myself first.
At the university that I attend, I see students not voting out of a feeling of helplessness and frustration that the existing situation cannot be changed without overwhelming financial force. It’s crude to say, but I’ve heard many students utter my Grandfather’s version of realism: “Money talks and BS walks.”
Maureen, Chicago has long been known as having the finest politics that money can buy.
I see students not voting out of a feeling of helplessness and frustration that the existing situation cannot be changed without overwhelming financial force
Mendy, it’s seems to me that this is a self-fullfilling prophecy. As far as not voting being as much an expression of political dissatisfaction as voting is, that sounds like a cop-out. If you vote, you can help put a particular candidate in office. Consider what a difference it would have made if a few additional tens of thousands of people in a key state had voted for Kerry. You can express all you want, but that doesn’t mean a damn thing next to actually doing something.
RonF:
You will note that I vote, and I was not discussing the correctness or incorrectness of these students choices only stating I’ve been told about those reasons. It feels like a copout to me as well, but I won’t belittle someone’s feelings simply because I disagree with those feelings.
Having said that, I will ask now what should I do when there is no viable candidate that I can honestly get behind? Vote for something less than what my concious dictates?
The fact is, right or wrong, that many people do not vote because they believe that thier vote doesn’t count. Given the results of the last two presidential electiosn, I can’t say that I blame them. And yes if more people had gotten out and voted then maybe the tide could have been turned in Kerry’s favor. But if you have little to no confidence in the existing system to represent you or your interests (as an individual) it is easy to see why some people do not vote. The cure it would seem is to reestablish faith in the system, to hold our elected officials responsible for the promises they make, and to make the process accessible to all for the redress of grievences.
Yes, I am aware that this is how the system is established, but it is not in truth how it functions. The fact is those with power (read financial power) will do strive to remain in control with any means necessary. I readily admit to being cynical in the arena of national politics, and I normally am active on a state and local level. And by active I mean, working in campaigns, doing voter registration drives, etc.
Huh. I coulda sworn participation was up since Oregon went vote-by-mail.
how bout we require all ballots to have “none of the above” on the ticket. If “none of the above” wins, all other canidates are barred from future political races.
Kip, no reason on earth it shouldn’t be. This isn’t Switzerland, and many places are starting from a floor of very low participation.
“Having said that, I will ask now what should I do when there is no viable candidate that I can honestly get behind? Vote for something less than what my concious dictates?”
You could still go to the voting booth and leave the ballot blank. Or leave it blank for a particular race.
All in all, I am not in favor of forcing people into the voting booth. If you don’t care enough to vote without being forced to do it, I don’t think you probably should be having a say in how the country is run.
Making certain that everyone who wants to has an opportunity to vote, yes. Making it easier for those who wish to vote to do so, yes.
But we shouldn’t be getting the truly apathetic to vote.
Kip wrote: Huh. I coulda sworn participation was up since Oregon went vote-by-mail.
I think I’ve heard the same thing. But perhaps that’s caused by other factors (“correlation is not causation, but cliche is still cliche” and all that), and participation would have been up even more had we not gone to vote-by-mail. That’s why the kind of time-series analysis the Swiss were able to do, because they switched over district-by-district rather than all at once, is generally considered a more accurate methodology.
Or maybe the Swiss and the Oregonians are just different.
Since voting is itself irrational (there is virtually no chance of your vote changing the outcome), it’s not clear why those who don’t vote voluntarily would be less rational than those who do.
My anecdotal experience is a lot of people vote on the basis of endorsements; they don’t really know much about the candidates or issues, but they do know a news junkie or a leader or a political party they trust, and they vote on the basis of that person’s preferences. Offhand, this seems like a perfectly rational way of deciding how to vote.
That reflects who you hear, not the reality. There have been numerous complaints that programs like the one you favor have an unfair impact on the poor, on immigrants who have become legal citizens, on the non-white, and on the elderly, all of whom are less likely to have the documents you mention, and also less likely to drive.
A better system would have people show ID (passport, birth certificate, drivers liscense or state ID, student ID, etc) when they vote, and those who don’t have the right ID can fill out a provisional vote at the polling station, signing a statement swearing that they are citizens, etc. If the election is close enough to be determined one way or the other by the provisional votes (which in practice are a tiny percentage of the total), then the provisional votes can be checked to make sure that no non-citizens voted, and the ones filled out by citizens will be counted.
As far as I know, the legitimate social science on voting consistantly finds that there is no significant problem caused by fake or non-citizen votes.
Actually, in the 2004 election people had to stand in line for hours to vote in critical places like Ohio. If people are waiting in line for hours, then clearly there are not enough working polling places or stations.
I think the “barred from future races” bit is probably unconstitutional. However, I like the idea of a NOTA win meaning that the election has to be done over.
Since voting is itself irrational (there is virtually no chance of your vote changing the outcome)
I agree. It is irrational for people on the left to vote. Stay home, Amp.
Wishful thoughts aside, this assessment is based on the assumption that the intention of the rational voter is to single-handedly change the outcome. This is not, in fact, the case; you could poll a million voters and, lunatic outliers aside, there would be no significant group of people giving that as a primary, or even secondary, reason for their vote.
Rather, we vote because we are aware of how voting systems work: that the collective weight of opinion is being assessed, and that our particular drop in the bucket will make a tiny but real contribution to the assessment.
To analogize, it is similarly irrational for a soldier on a battlefield to fire his weapon at the enemy. The odds that his particular contribution to his army’s firepower will turn the tide of battle are astronomical. Instead, he should hide. But an army of soldiers made up of people who act “rationally” will all be killed by an army of soldiers who act “irrationally”.
When the people who act rationally all die and the people who act irrationally go home to wife and children, one is led to the conclusion that the definition of “rational” has gotten mixed up.
Voting is sympathetic magic.
If you vote, other people who agree with you will also vote. If you don’t they won’t.
Scoff at sympathetic magic if you want, but it underpins functional society. Atomized economic rationalism on the other hand…
And I’d guess, given that social factors were viewed as key in the Swiss drop off in voting, that the results don’t really apply to a place that is not much like Switzerland socially. Yes, Oregon participation numbers went up. I believe Washington and California numbers did not. Being seen by your neighbors in your close-knit civic-minded small community to be voting probably isn’t a big factor in Oregon. Not having to stand in long lines in the cold rain probably is.
Ampersand: “Since voting is itself irrational (there is virtually no chance of your vote changing the outcome), it’s not clear why those who don’t vote voluntarily would be less rational than those who do. “
Every person I know who doesn’t vote uses this reason: “It’s not like my vote counts, why bother.”
Robert: “Wishful thoughts aside, this assessment is based on the assumption that the intention of the rational voter is to single-handedly change the outcome. This is not, in fact, the case; you could poll a million voters and, lunatic outliers aside, there would be no significant group of people giving that as a primary, or even secondary, reason for their vote. “
Not true. Every person I know who votes feels that their “one” vote does matter. The average person believes in the “one person, one vote and the majority rules” thing. I think it’s a hold over from childhood. You voted people in or out of clubs as little kids. One vote mattered then. In school, you voted on class presidents, treasurers, even homecoming court and every vote counted. Each election was presented as a lesson in democracy. Everyone was expected to vote, each vote was counted and if a person had one vote more that the other, they were the winner. If the losers kicked up a fuss, the votes were counted again and a lesson in good sportsmanship was provided.
Then we grew up. Now we are told that voting doesn’t matter so much. That our votes don’t really count. One vote won’t change anything. It’s not really the majority rules. And more and more the average person who might vote, doesn’t. No reason to vote if it doesn’t count.
Some theoretic belief that “the collective weight of opinion is being assessed, and that our particular drop in the bucket will make a tiny but real contribution to the assessment. ” doesn’t quite cut it any more.
Robert says :”we vote because we are aware of how voting systems work “. I disagree. If I ask 5 people where I work, who still vote, how voting works, they will give the childhood lesson they learned: one person, one vote, the majority rules. The average person has little or no clue about politics, how voting systems work, the Electoral College, economics, or government in general.
But some of them still vote because they believe in that childhood description of democracy.
What Charles said. And Robert, though it makes no sense for him to say it here.
We could recruit more occultists by naming Voting Day a national holiday, then running holiday commercials on TV. “Happy Voting Day. Get off your ass and vote!”
HF mentioned “Voting Day”.
Why don’t we have “Voting Holidays”? Where once every 4 years folks get a real day off to go vote. I don’t know about anyone else, but the the last two presidential votes were a pain in the ass. The 2000 election, I couldn’t vote going in to work, the lines were too long. I took a long lunch and went back to vote. Took me 4 hours in line. I went back to work and stayed a bit late to make up some time, but voting that day cost me about 30 buck in wages. 2004, same deal, but this time I skipped lunch, got off early stood in line and waited. I had to call a neighbor to check on my mom and fix her supper. All for doing something I know in my heart won’t matter or make a difference.
Every year the government, banks, the post office and work places shut down for holidays that a large number of people do not celebrate. Why can’t they shut down to allow folks to vote?
Why can’t they shut down to allow folks to vote?
Because we want voting to be as hard as is legally permissible.
Mandatory voting has a bad odor with me. Firstly, I feel people have every right not to care and even to complain without doing a damn thing. Secondly, why are non-voters inevitably seen as shirkers? If, indeed, voting makes little difference, what rational person would bother (nb: I always vote)? Given some of the choices, I don’t blame non-voters. Thirdly, mandatory voting was used in other countries to stomp the opposition’s shit, particularly El Salvador in the late 70s-early 80s. Those stopped by the police who didn’t produce receipts proving they voted were disappeared. That likely wouldn’t happen here, but it is food for thought.
On another point, in light of this article’s main contention, can we now stop hitting Nader supporters over the head with shoes? Pretty please with a voting receipt on top??
On another point, in light of this article’s main contention, can we now stop hitting Nader supporters over the head with shoes?
What do you mean? Whenever I meet a Nader voter, I buy them a beer.
I sometimes feel bad about my reasons for voting not being ‘high-minded’ enough, but honestly, these days, I derive almost as much pleasure from schadenfreude as I do from accomplishment, and voting is one of the more concrete ways to strike at people and ideas I dislike.
For example, in this last California election, every proposition I voted against lost. Every proposition I voted for lost too, but I count it as a net win. I will happily cut off my nose, as long as I can spite the fuck out of my face.
:-)
—Myca
Having said that, I will ask now what should I do when there is no viable candidate that I can honestly get behind? Vote for something less than what my concious dictates?
Hey, I was in Japan in the summer of 2004 and one fine morning at 7:30 AM I found myself eating tempura octopus and deep-fried stuffed sea-cucumber and drinking beer (truly a breakfast of champions) while the fishermen who’d just brought their trawlers back in after having been out since 2:00 AM were asking me, “You rike Kerry? You rike Bush?”
It took a minute for my companion to translate “I don’t like either one of them.” I think they were dissapointed. But, then, so was I, and I actually felt that I had to vote. One way to deal with it is to try to find “the lesser evil”. It’s a compromise, but I seem to recall that I’ve heard politics described as the art of the compromise. You have to figure that it’s always going to be unusual to find a candidate that will represent your own opinions in everything.
Another way is to vote for a non-viable candidate. When a fringe candidate actually makes some noise at the polls, the major candidates may well be tempted to modify their positions to try to pick up some of those votes, especially if their margin of victory was low.
I also recommend that you consider the more local races. There’s got to be someone in them that you can support. And if you look at the history of most candidates, few of them start out at the top; they very often run for local or state positions first. Think of it as developing the farm team.
I’d go for “Voting holidays”. Right now in Illinois your employer has to give you a half-day off, unpaid, to vote. Maybe we ought to extend that to paid, but you’d have to show a voting receipt.
“There have been numerous complaints that programs like the one you favor have an unfair impact on the poor, on immigrants who have become legal citizens, on the non-white, and on the elderly, all of whom are less likely to have the documents you mention, and also less likely to drive.”
Why would the poor, non-white and elderly be less likely to be able to prove their citizenship? But in the interests of furthering the argument, I’d be willing to subsidize the State’s provision of those documents to anyone who couldn’t afford them or was having problems getting them. As far as immigrants who have become legal citizens, I’d like to see those numbers; it would be my guess that they would be more likely than native-born citizens to possess their citizenship documents. And the ability to drive shouldn’t affect the example I cite; in order to get a driver’s license in Illinois, you have to pass a driving test. If you can’t get access to a car, how can you do that?
“A better system would have people show ID (passport, birth certificate, drivers liscense or state ID, student ID, etc) when they vote, and those who don’t have the right ID can fill out a provisional vote at the polling station, signing a statement swearing that they are citizens, etc. If the election is close enough to be determined one way or the other by the provisional votes (which in practice are a tiny percentage of the total), then the provisional votes can be checked to make sure that no non-citizens voted, and the ones filled out by citizens will be counted.”
Fine. I’ll sign off on that. Poll watchers would need some training in how to verify the documents you cite. But I’d only endorse use of drivers licneses as long as the particular state requires proof of citizenship to obtain a driver’s license, and makes drivers licenses for non-citizens distinctive. And I’d check those provisional votes anyway; anyone who’s not a citizen who tried to vote is a criminal.
“As far as I know, the legitimate social science on voting consistantly finds that there is no significant problem caused by fake or non-citizen votes.”
I wouldn’t know, I must say. But since voters are not now required to prove they are citizens, how can they measure this? I have also seen news stories where some politicians, especially in cities like San Francisco and others, have endorsed allowing non-citizens to vote.
“Actually, in the 2004 election people had to stand in line for hours to vote in critical places like Ohio. If people are waiting in line for hours, then clearly there are not enough working polling places or stations.”
Now that you mention that, I do remember this. That’s not necessarily a nationwide problem, though. It should definitely be fixed, and it’s definitely a government responsibility to do so.
Hey, mousehounde, why only every 4 years? There’s a Federal election every 2 years that often have state and local races as well, and some localities have municipal elections at other times of the years.
My anecdotal experience is a lot of people vote on the basis of endorsements; they don’t really know much about the candidates or issues, but they do know a news junkie or a leader or a political party they trust, and they vote on the basis of that person’s preferences. Offhand, this seems like a perfectly rational way of deciding how to vote.
Seems rational to me as well. I’m not worried about the people who are at least interested enough in voting rationally that they say to themselves “Hey, let me ask someone I can trust about who to vote for.” I figure that people who do that are at least interested in making an intelligent choice. I’m worried about mandatory voting sucking in the people who don’t even care that much.
But since voters are not now required to prove they are citizens, how can they measure this?
Since keep lists of who did vote, it’s possible to both check after-the-fact to make sure no one voted twice, and to make sure that everyone who voted was in fact a citizen.
The fact is, right or wrong, that many people do not vote because they believe that thier vote doesn’t count. Given the results of the last two presidential electiosn, I can’t say that I blame them.
I don’t understand. The last two Presidential elections were the closest we’ve had since Kennedy/Nixon. People’s votes counted more in those than they have for years, at least in the swing states.
The cure it would seem is to reestablish faith in the system, to hold our elected officials responsible for the promises they make,
The electorate has a power to do this that no one can deny (depending on how you view the Supreme Court’s 2000 electoral decisions). Voting is really the only way to do this, so this is an arguement for voting.
and to make the process accessible to all for the redress of grievences.
Well, money talks and BS walks, as someone said upthread. As long as money is the mother’s milk of politics, those who control buckets of money will speak louder than those of us who don’t. Of course, there’s more of us who don’t, so perhaps our collective voices can be made to be heard. How you would improve this?
Perhaps everyone who turned in their vote-by-mail ballots should get back a roll of “I Voted” postage stamps.
Of course, in our household, the only people who would know we voted would be the clerks (or machines) opening up the payment envelopes at the gas, electric, and credit-card companies…
Descriptions of how hard it can be to get time off work, or the length of time waiting in line are a major reason why I’m glad we have compulsory voting in Australia.
Here, they can’t afford to give you the shits by making voting that difficult, as people who are forced to vote will tend to get pretty angry if you also make it difficult to do.
And also, it’s “compulsory showing up at a voting booth”, which granted may seem a minor distinction, but it removes the whole “not voting is a form of protest” argument. You can still protest by either not showing up and paying a fine, or showing up and leaving your ballot paper blank, or writing fuck off/ none of the above. Protests are generally more effective if people know about them.
Finally, compulsory voting means that all attempts by those in power to convince people that voting’s a waste of time are wasted, and no-one gets an advantage solely based on their ability to get people to polling booths.
Amp, what was the methodology that was used in these studies to verify citizenship?
Amanda, “Fuck Off/None Of The Above” sounds like something that is going to be on my next ballot. The voting machines in Illinois do ballot verification. We use punch card ballots (people in Ilinois cannot figure out what’s wrong with people in Florida, we’ve used them for decades) that let you know if you either voted for multiple candidates in the same race or did not vote for anyone in a race. Mine always beeps, because I leave some races blank (it does tell you which is which). Now I know what to do for the races I leave blank. Thanks!
Ron, I’m sorry, but I don’t know offhand. I’d guess that the government has records that can be checked against.
The thing is, Amp, that I’ve registered to vote a few times in different juristictions, and I’ve only been asked to prove residence, not citizenship. And when my son got his first drivers’ license, he was required to prove his identity by use of a birth certificate. While that also proved his citizenship, you don’t have to be a citizen to get a license, and to my knowledge that’s the situation in most states. So I’m wondering where they got the records to prove that these voters were or were not citizens.
i think that voting is something that needs to be done…no matter who you are.there are too many arrogant people that are always comlaining and bitching about something that the governmnet does “wrong.”if you’re going to comlain about everything that goes on,then u better damn well vote….