

On election day, consider abstaining from ignorant voting - CapitalistCartr
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2014/11/04/on-election-day-consider-abstaining-from-ignorant-voting/

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imgabe
I don't agree with this. There are a number of races I voted in more or less
randomly today, and I feel perfectly fine about that.

I look at it this way. There is, we can assume, one "optimal" candidate. We
have little way of knowing which one this will be until after they're elected
and have started working. In some cases there may be candidates who are very
obviously non-optimal - like if they're currently being indicted - but aside
from that, it's tough to tell.

If I know nothing, the chance that I'll vote for that candidate is 1/N where N
is the number of candidates.

If I do know about the race, and have been persuaded to vote for a non-optimal
candidate, there's 0% chance that I'll vote for the optimal outcome.

The only situation where my vote definitely contributes to a good outcome is
if I know for sure that the candidate is the best one, but that requires
predicting the future, and is impossible. There will always be a pretty good
chance my vote could have been cast for someone better.

I think in the end, the probability that the best candidate gets elected in
low-information races is going to tend towards 1/N anyway, so you may as well
increase the sample size.

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varelse
I'll take an uninformed off the cuff vote over the abstention of a depressed
slacktivist any day, but maybe that's just me.

If voters are voting ignorantly, then let the politicians spend more time
informing them rather than slinging mud at each other. Oh excuse me, I mean
hey check out that boat full of cocaine owned by Mitch McConnell's in-laws
because scandal!

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jordanpg
> Even if you are an unusually well-informed voter, the enormous size, scope,
> and complexity of modern government ensure that there will be many issues
> and candidates about which you know very little….

This argument can be used _ad infinitum_. There cannot be such a thing as
perfectly informed about anything that has subjective components, so this
doesn't sway me.

I find a corollary of this much more interesting: in elections for office --
as opposed to referenda -- I find that the amount of information I need to
make a binary choice is often trivial. I absolutely cannot understand why
there are so many millions of people out there who have such a hard time
making up their mind on these things. Moreover, we have the gift of
information about candidates at our fingertips. Maybe others see subtleties
where I see rather stark contrasts, but I doubt it. I think it's all just
political news reporting-generated false churn.

