

Why Vote? Freakonomics' take on voting - dangoldin
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/06/magazine/06freak.html?_r=2&n=Top%2fFeatures%2fMagazine%2fColumns%2fFreakonomics&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

======
tarkin2
Voting is an aggregate activity. When you think of it as an individualist
activity, as an economist would, you fail to see it for what it is -- an
aggregate.

Imagine if you are in a line of people passing bricks from a collapsed
building to another location. If you looked at this activity from an
individual's perspective you'd said, "Passing this brick to that other person
isn't clearing the rubble."

And you'd be right. It's not. But then you are not the activity in entirety;
you are only part of the activity. And because this activity is social, it
depends on human behavior.

This attitude, then, falls under the category of the fallacy of composition:
what's rational for one actor is not rational if everyone does the same.
Voting is not an individual activity, it's a group activity and looking at it
as if it's a individual activity belies that.

When you analyze group activities as if they're individual activities you get
erroneous conclusions. I can see why Taleb gets annoyed with economists now.

~~~
ryporter
In your scenario, if I don't pass along my brick, then the chain is broken
(or, others at least have to do more work). However, in an election, if I
don't vote, then no one has to pick up my slack. We'll still elect a president
tomorrow.

What is the negative externality that I'm imposing on others by not voting? If
anything, I see it as a ( _very_ small) positive externality, because I'm
letting everyone else decide who they want as president.

~~~
tarkin2
The brick example was used to shed light upon the difference between
individual and group activities. It's does not match the activity of voting, I
know. However...

Your use of the phrase "imposing on others" is telling. It implies you are
separate from the others who vote, but in a democracy, during voting, you are
not. You are all part of one system, and you all work towards the democratic
task.

When you choose not to vote, you exclude yourself from that system. One single
absence will indeed not damage the system significantly enough to destroy it.
But, as I said, this system replies on human behavior, and more specifically
socialization.

When you post articles on the New York Times website, when you post here and
when you chat to friends about the futility of voting and when you tell them
you have not voted you affect them; you influence them.

Human behavior is incredible herd-like. Your choice not to vote affects
others, others affect others, and that affects, in this case detrimentally,
the democratic system.

And this, again, goes back to the fallacy of composition. It was rational for
you not to vote. Yet, because you live in society, that decision affects
others, and when it affects enough people that newly formed decision becomes
highly irrational.

~~~
ryporter
You're right. I do see myself as separate from others who vote. If I vote, am
I working together with a voter who just wants to restrict gay rights? What
about a racist who won't vote for Obama because he's black? These are extreme
examples, but I just don't see the election as a task that we're all
collaborating on.

Second, are we discussing my decision to vote, or my public announcement of
that decision? Am I damaging the democratic system by publicly questioning
whether to vote?

------
utnick
Not everything should be looked at from an economist's point of view.

If an old lady in front of you drops her purse, there is no economical reason
for you to help her out. It is a waste of your time and she can pick it up
herself. If she can't pick it up herself, someone else walking the street will
help her out. No need to trouble yourself.

However, most people here would help her out because its just the right thing
to do.

~~~
jmcannon
Actually, this was the article's point exactly. You would help her out to
satisfy a social expectation. What would others think if you didn't?

You might ask how that changes if you and the old lady are alone. You would
probably say that you'd still help her out, though I'd say that's just a
response trained within a particular environment in which there is a help-old-
ladies social expectation.

~~~
yummyfajitas
Not just social expectation (many would do it if there were no observers), but
also increasing self satisfaction. Most people, myself included, derive
utility from the belief that they are a good person.

------
ConradHex
I didn't vote in 2000, because it was too much trouble. I spent the next four
years regretting it, and 2004 rolled around and I had another chance. Somehow
I wasn't able to register in time, and missed it, and spent another 4 years
feeling bad.

This time I registered plenty early, and voted early, too. Now no matter what
happens, I can feel good about doing my part for the next four years. I'd say
that was time well spent.

~~~
kingkongrevenge
>I didn't vote in 2000, because it was too much trouble. I spent the next four
years regretting it

In 2000 a vote for a foreign policy of peace was a vote for Bush. That was his
line. Gore was the one who had been threatening Indonesia and getting us
dragged into messes in the Balkans. He as much as promised more military
action abroad. This all goes to illustrate the ultimate meaninglessness of the
campaigning.

~~~
lacker
Good points to remember in case we all weren't cynical enough already.

Bush 2000 = "We don't do nation-building".

Bush 2003 = "Major combat operations in Iraq have ended."

~~~
kingkongrevenge
Wilson was elected to keep us out of war. He maneuvered us into war,
cooperating with the British against the wishes of the people. Ditto for FDR,
who also deliberately pursued a policy of provocation against the Japanese.

Nixon was elected to end the war. Instead he bombed Cambodia. Reagan pulled a
180 on middle east policy and withdrew from Lebanon.

With the possible exception of LBJ I think every president in recent history
has contradicted their indicated foreign policy. (LBJ was just bonkers from
the get-go.)

------
jsdalton
Here's one of my favorite reasons to vote: Your vote does have an impact on
the vote count.

I like to check out the vote tallies when the election is over -- and when it
says "324,879" instead of "324,878" or whatever, I think, "Hey, that's me!"
This also works whether you live in a swing state like Ohio or a forgone
conclusion like California.

And in all seriousness, vote count does matter, even if the outcome is a "sure
thing." The size of a victory plays a very big role in giving a mandate for
the winner to get things done.

So hackers...seriously, get out there and vote, even if it only makes a
1/305,563,000 difference.

------
JoelSutherland
Does this ignore network effects? I am pretty silent about my politics, but at
least 25 people were aware that I voted early (friends, coworkers, family
members). Did this affect their decision to vote and therefore the value of my
vote?

If a candidate does a great job getting out the vote compared to their
opponent, the result of the election will not reflect popular opinion. Instead
it will be biased toward that candidate. Those that voted for the candidate
will see more value from their vote.

That still may not outweigh the hour spent in line.

~~~
dangoldin
Maybe it does but you can also argue it has an inverse effect. If I know
someone else voted I may just say "Well they voted so I don't have to."

------
petercooper
I'm glad there's actually a mass media outlet that would post something like
this. They are focusing heavily on the numbers though, rather than the system
- and it's the system that's the problem.

I don't vote because my single vote carries no weight, as the article
demonstrates. However, if _proportional representation_ were used, I would
vote because my vote would count for _something_ even if very little. With
First Past The Post, my vote is more like buying a lottery ticket.. if I vote
for the loser then it counts for zero - which is why we end up with two party
systems.

~~~
emmett
A vote for the loser does not count for nothing. It makes you an active
political entity worth courting.

Do you know why social security is inviolate, and no one from either party
will ever do anything to stop payments? Because _old people vote_. If you (and
people like you) don't vote, you don't count, and no one will ever listen to
you.

Voting increases the strength of your demographic, and then shifts the
political allegiance of that demographic very slightly towards your views.

~~~
petercooper
_Voting increases the strength of your demographic, and then shifts the
political allegiance of that demographic very slightly towards your views._

Do you seriously believe that young people would, as a demographic group,
generally vote together to disband social security?

I don't think there's an old person vs young person divide at all. There's
plenty of divide between conservatives, liberals, communists, libertarians,
etc, of all age groups.

~~~
dhimes
The campaign managers _definitely_ see the old demographic as worth courting.
They even have a "lobby:" the AARP. No sane politician torques off the
seniors. That's one of the reasons why it's so hard to take their driver's
licenses away, even when they are feeble.

If the young people had something like this, the drinking age may still be 18
instead of 21.

~~~
dgordon
Perhaps part of the issue here is that young people are only young (for your
example, 18-20) for a little while, whereas old people are old for decades.

------
bokonist
People do not vote out of self-interest. People vote because of how it makes
them feel about themselves. Its not unlike going to church.

While this may sound like an OK thing, in reality it is disastrous. We elect
leaders who make us feel great about ourselves by promising to fix the world.
They then churn out giant bureaucracies to actually implement the world saving
policies. But by then, no one is paying attention to whether the feel good
policy actually works. The bureaucracy ends up being very effective at looking
out for its own self interest, and incredibly ineffective at actually solving
problems.

Thus the result of a Red-state voter wanting to feel like a bad ass warrior is
the creation of the giant military bureaucracy that creates threats in order
to justify its own existence. The result a Blue-state voters desire to end
poverty is a welfare state that in many ways has made inner city poverty much
worse than it was in 1900 ( which is hard to do, considering the incredible
improvements in technology).

~~~
delackner
Really, do explain how inner city poverty is "much worse" than it was in 1900?
Infant mortality? No. Access to safe and nutritive food? No. Access to
housing? No.

Do tell. "If turn-of-the-century infant death rates had continued, then an
estimated 500,000 live-born infants during 1997 would have died before age 1
year; instead, 28,045 infants died" (1)

(1) Hoyert DL, Kochanek KD, Murphy SL. Deaths: final data for 1997.
Hyattsville, Maryland: US Department of Health and Human Services, CDC,
National Center for Health Statistics, 1999. (National vital statistics
report; vol 47, no. 20).

~~~
bokonist
Read a few modern accounts of urban poverty, like "The Corner" and "Gang
Leader for a day". Then compare it to accounts from the early 1900's such as
"The Slums of Baltimore, Chicago, New York, and Philadelphia", "Land of the
Dollar", and "How the other half lives." It will blow you away.

Yes, the technology today is far better and knowledge of science far greater.
We have penicillin and vaccinations. Fwer babies die at all income levels. But
the gang violence, drug addiction, and perpetual unemployment problems are all
much, much worse. Nothing like our modern inner city slums existed 100 years
ago. Technology gave us low infant mortality. Politics lost us our cities -
<http://detroityes.com/home.htm>

~~~
delackner
Now I understand the perspective you were writing from. Certainly our inner
cities are crumbling. For very specific population groups, quality of life and
life expectancy is shockingly bad, and that is indeed the fault of politics.

The US is the only major democracy that seems content to cheer the success of
the lucky and laugh at the failure of the rest. Sadly the poorest of the poor
have in large part bought this destructive mantra of "self sufficiency" and
"freedom" that in real terms means: tough luck if you get hit by a bus!

~~~
bokonist
_The US is the only major democracy that seems content to cheer the success of
the lucky and laugh at the failure of the rest._

That has nothing to do with it. The main problem with the U.S. is that it has
had 150 years of racial warfare - whites hating on blacks, blacks hating on
whites. All of it has been entirely destructive, and it really needs to stop.

Try watching a couple episodes of The Corner ( [http://www.amazon.com/Corner-
Year-Life-Inner-City-Neighborho...](http://www.amazon.com/Corner-Year-Life-
Inner-City-Neighborhood/dp/0767900316) ). It's based on a the account of a
journalist who spent a year following a family in Baltimore. It also matches
my personal experiences in working for various inner city charities. Then tell
me how somehow getting rid of this alleged mantra of "self sufficiency" and
"freedom" and replacing it with X will make things better.

~~~
kaens
I haven't watched The Corner, but I have read the book, and stayed in some
very ghetto places in Baltimore when I was in my hitchhiking / train-hopping
phase.

The book The Corner is an excellent read, and is quite accurate. People who
have little to no experience with real lower-class city areas and ghettos
should read it. It's also very well written, and is not a dry read at all.

------
cousin_it
Reminded me of "Ten ways to make a political difference" by political theorist
Nick Szabo. The article is pretty biased by his libertarian roots, but voting
is still at number ten, the least effective.

[http://unenumerated.blogspot.com/2007/08/ten-ways-to-make-
di...](http://unenumerated.blogspot.com/2007/08/ten-ways-to-make-
difference.html)

------
Prrometheus
This is pretty much my reason for voting:

"2. Perhaps we vote in the same spirit in which we buy lottery tickets. After
all, your chances of winning a lottery and of affecting an election are pretty
similar. From a financial perspective, playing the lottery is a bad
investment. But it's fun and relatively cheap: for the price of a ticket, you
buy the right to fantasize how you'd spend the winnings - much as you get to
fantasize that your vote will have some impact on policy."

I fantasize that my vote for Bob Barr will throw the election into a tie,
creating a giant entertaining mess even bigger than the aftermath of the 2000
election. Also, I will get some warm fuzzies over the next 4 years knowing
that I didn't vote for the winner when they inevitably screw up. Lastly, I am
a contrarian by nature. I will enjoy being the only one of my friends that did
not vote for Barack Obama, much as I enjoy being the only one who does not
pray in a church.

~~~
dhimes
Bob Barr??!!?? (barf.....)

~~~
dgordon
I'll probably hold my nose and give him a protest vote, considering he's not
quite as bad as the Socialist Party, the Fascist Party, and the "The
Constitution Authorizes a Theocracy" Party.

Besides, my vote doesn't matter.

~~~
dhimes
uh, yeah, he's a member of the CCC (or was, before they were outed). KKK
reborn (but non-violent). I try to stay out of political discussions here, but
he's a very bad man. Casting a protest vote for him is like casting one for
that old jerk from W. VA (can't recall his name, former Imperial Wizard for
the Klan that supports the "remote viewing" funding of the CIA--he's a Dem).

Pick someone else for your protest vote, please.

~~~
dgordon
Screw it, maybe I'll just write in Ron Paul, even though write-in votes
allegedly aren't counted. As I said, my vote doesn't matter anyway.

------
swombat
I am a Swiss living abroad and I always vote by mail-in ballot. I don't vote
out of a feeling of social obligation, I vote because I believe it does make a
difference, however small, and that if I convince myself and people I know to
vote, that difference keeps adding up.

If I didn't have the mail-in option, however, chances are I wouldn't vote -
even if I was back home in Switzerland. I don't vote for a social perception,
I vote because I care about the issues being voted about (note: we don't vote
on people very often, we mostly vote on issues; I don't usually vote on
people).

Obviously I can't argue with the results of the study. Perhaps mail voting
does decrease voting likelihood. At the same time, I'd argue that people who
vote out of a sense of social obligation rather than because they have an
opinion on the issues at hand would be better off abstaining. If you don't
care about the outcome, don't vote. Chances are, if you don't care, you won't
have bothered to research the issues anyway, so your vote would merely be
statistical noise or, worse, uninformed "vote like my party" trash. We're
really better off without your vote then.

This article would be disturbing if it wasn't so pitiful. The only thing
proven by this article is that the economist's perspective is awfully limited,
and completely inapplicable when it comes to deciding how to behave in the
"real world". If everyone behaved like economists as described in this
article, most social functions wouldn't be able to exist, and we would
probably soon devolve into a collection of pitiful warring tribes.

------
Tichy
Could there something else at work in the siwss experiment, too? If the cost
is higher to vote (walking through the rain etc.), maybe the perceived chance
is greater that your vote has a greater weight, because fewer people will show
up to vote. If you make it through a tornado, you might even wind up being the
only person at the voting booth.

Perhaps with the cheap mail-in ballots people feel too assured that everybody
else will vote, anyway, so their own vote is less important.

------
metaguri
Someone may have said this already, but not succinctly, so I'll have a go:

If I understand right, nobody votes, and then who gets elected? You vote to
contribute to the sample size, fool! 2 votes for one candidate and 1 vote for
another is a questionable victory, but 66,000 for one and 33,000 for the other
is decisive.

------
ars
It's also sort of interesting to vote. What machine will they use this time?
What's on the ballot? Will it work? How many people will be there? Will there
be big problems?

People like novelty.

------
zitterbewegung
I can get a free cup of coffee from starbucks and extra credit in my classes
if I vote so that justifies why I am voting. The opportunity cost for me not
voting is too high for me.

~~~
hugh
You get extra credit in your classes for voting? That doesn't really sound
like an appropriate use of power by your professors.

It sounds far more like inappropriate use of academic power in order to rustle
up more votes for you-know-who.

------
mstefff
Such a great article. And I love when the NYTimes calls me rational.

------
vaksel
to me the only reasons to vote is if you are in a swing state. Anywhere else
its a huge waste of time because your state is predetermined to go one way or
the other.

------
kingkongrevenge
Reasons not to vote:

Voting for federal candidates is an affirmation of the legitimacy of the power
of the government, which you may reject. Your vote will make you complicit in
the next federal campaign to blow up foreigners, or the current campaign to
imprison millions of Americans for victimless crimes. I assure you Obama WILL
blow up innocent foreigners; every president finds some excuse to do it at
some point.

A vote for "none of the above" IS a vote. The politicians NEED sufficiently
high turnout to legitimize their power.

Elections are about as genuine as pro-wrestling. They never have anything to
do with how government actually proceeds after the race. Rhetoric has
consistently contradicted actions in my lifetime. Pretending you participated
in an informed decision making process is delusional.

You're stuck choosing between coke and pepsi when you really want a glass of
milk. The republican and democratic parties have locked up the racket for
themselves. They are different brands of the same corporatocracy and mostly
create the illusion of choice with careful marketing. Every couple years they
push the right buttons to get their brand's simpletons whipped into a
sufficient frenzy to trek to the polls. Then they proceed with business as
usual.

Voting, emotional investment in the political process, and keeping informed
about the political process are distractions from far more socially productive
activities. If every campaign volunteer had resolved not to vote or really
care about the election, and instead spent their time doing something of value
on their block, the aggregate outcome would far surpass the positive
difference in outcomes between any pair of candidates.

Lastly, your vote really doesn't matter, statistically speaking.

~~~
geuis
Your vote DOES matter, statistically speaking. Disregarding the oddness of the
electoral college, in most elections where the number of votes is directly
relational to the outcome of the contest, the individual statistical
importance of each vote decreases as the overall volume of votes increases. In
elections where fewer votes are registered, the significance of each vote on
the outcome increases.

In an election involving hundreds of millions of people, you can claim
correctly that overall influence of your vote is tiny. That does NOT mean it
doesn't matter. However, to properly represent the desire of the voter pool in
aggregate, all people must participate. The outcome of an election is not to
decide what you individually want, its to decide what the populace in general
wants.

As to your other political statements, some I agree with, some not. I used to
be very politically active(anti-war rallies, protests, supporting local
candidates, volunteering, sign waving, etc).

If you're from a country where you can't vote, then your opinions aren't
helping your fellow man. You need to get off the computer and go stand up to
your corrupt leaders. You might get shot, but when enough people stand up
things change. Hey, its kind of like voting!

------
sanj
If you don't vote, I could care less about your political opinion.

~~~
jamesbritt
"If you don't vote, I could [sic] care less about your political opinion."

Odd phrasing aside, what if (for example) my political opinion is that voting
is immoral because it legitimizes a corrupt or intrinsically broken system?

Why is abstaining from a process so dismissed?

I've heard people say, if you don't vote you can't complain, yet if you opt in
to a system then how can you bitch when it doesn't swing your way? If you
vote, then you can't complain; you can't have it both ways.

(I'm not quite convinced of this myself, but I'm puzzled by people who won't
even consider it.)

~~~
petercooper
+1

Just wanted to add some more to this, as I recently had a debate about this
with someone who was _very_ pro-voting.

Abstaining from _religion_ is no longer dismissed, yet politics, as you say,
remains a sticking point. In the 1500s, religious adherence was the norm in
the West. In the 2000s, adherence to democracy as a political system is the
norm (I have no doubt this will change in centuries to come).

Consider voting within a democratic system to be equivalent to choosing a
religion. If you are not religious, ideally you would not choose a religion.
Likewise, if you do not believe in the democratic system, ideally you would
not vote.

Democracy is a system that many people take for granted, but is only one of
many options. Voting in the democratic system implicitly means you support
democracy. If you do not support democracy, therefore, it would be quite
rightly against your principles to vote.

~~~
delackner
Except of course that in the year 2008, the church cannot have you KILLED for
"abstaining".

The US government has the power to forcefully imprison and/or kill you. If you
want to "abstain" from that system, then ignoring its existence all around you
is just being pigheaded. If you really want to abstain, I suggest that you
LEAVE. Many people find living outside the United States quite pleasant, and
you can rest assured that in most of the other democratic nations of the
world, your tax dollars are not being spent to bomb "collateral damage".

~~~
petercooper
I don't live in the US. In any case, which presidential candidate plans to
stop federal corporal punishment?

 _I suggest that you LEAVE. Many people find living outside the United States
quite pleasant, and you can rest assured that in most of the other democratic
nations of the world, your tax dollars are not being spent to bomb "collateral
damage"._

That's not viable if you're an American citizen. As an American citizen your
worldwide income is subject to US taxes, other than where overridden by
treaty.

~~~
delackner
The first ~$80k of your income is exempt. As for the rest, the US Government's
insistence that it controls you ANYWHERE on the planet is reprehensible.

