Presidential election years have a way of focusing attention
on voter turnout. Each season there
seems to be renewed focus on voting participation rates in America and
recognition that they tend to be quite a bit lower than in other democracies (e.g.,
America ~50-60%; Australia ~80%, Malta 94%, Iraq 58%).
What if everyone voted?
Would election outcomes be different?
Research is somewhat divided on this.
Some say no, some
say yes. Peter Orszag argues
that regardless of the effect on outcomes, voting should be mandatory and
punishable.
Peter Orszag rightly points out the “paradox of compulsory
voting” is that it could only be enacted if it could be shown to have a null
effect; in other words, both parties would have to support it and if one party
was seen to have an advantage, then the reform would fail to be enacted. Orszag suggests that compulsory voting is a
sensible reform that would “make democracy work better, in the sense of being
more reflective of the population at large.”
Orszag’s argument correctly assumes that elections, or the
outcomes they produce, are a public good—no individual has any incentive to
contribute to them (via voting) because an individual’s action can make no
difference; yet, collectively we are all better off if everyone participates. Almost by definition, democracy can only work
if its citizens participate in selecting representatives. If no one participated, democracy would cease
to exist.
One of the classic tenets of political science is that
public goods result in collective action problems, and that we can
traditionally use institutions to solve these dilemmas. For example, we can
prevent car crashes at intersections using traffic lights; we can create safe
drinking water by regulating polluters; we can create safe places for children
to play and learn by using tax dollars to build parks and schools; we can
create safe communities and perhaps prevent military actions against us by
having police and national defense systems.
When individuals defect from participating in these public goods (by,
for example, refusing to pay taxes), we punish them (by, for example, charging
fines or sending them to jail). Our laws and system of sanctions act as
institutions that solve the collective action problems created by the desire
for public goods—this is what we teach in political science 101.
Orszag’s argument is in direct line with this type of
approach to governing. Create an institution (mandatory voting) to solve the
collective action problem (non-voting) that results from the desire for the public
good (elections). But Orszag himself notes that it might be “unpopular” and difficult
to enact. In light of this problem this blog is a good place to point to recent
research on the causes and consequences of citizens’ participation in politics
(especially voting behavior), which suggests that other tactics might be more
effective, easier to enact, or perhaps more welcome by a citizenry increasingly
suspect of government.
For example, Meredith
Rolfe shows that voting is a social exercise. People tend to vote when they
are active in large social circles where others vote. Likewise, in a
large-scale experiment using Facebook, James
Fowler and collaborators found that when an individual believes his/her
friends have voted, the individual is more likely to vote. Also, Betsy
Sinclair shows that many types of political behavior, including voting
tendencies, are influenced by one’s peer network and their perceptions of their
friends’ inclinations toward voting. Simple positive social messaging, such as “people
like you have voted today, will you?” have a meaningful positive impact on
voter turnout.
This is consistent with the mission of new organizations
like Votizen, which aims to reduce the
role of money in campaigning by activating individual’s social networks to help
encourage their friends to vote.
So, mandatory voting laws would likely increase
participation in elections in America, but it is unclear whether such reforms are feasible, and whether the benefits
of increased participation would outweigh the costs of enforcing the law. Rather, social media, social networks, and
peer influence may be inexpensive and perhaps more effective ways of increasing
political participation. Political parties and candidates have already been figuring this out. The use of social media in modern political campaigns has quickly become a standard tactic, rather than a novelty. Perhaps the government in general, or those who champion higher turnout rates, should take this research to heart and deploy a more systematic system of encouraging voter participation through social networks and their media.
You're making the assumption that having more people vote is better. I don't agree.
ReplyDeleteSo what if 40% of the citizenry vote? I suspect that if the result were to deviate much from what we would see under universal voting then more citizens would vote.
Most citizens rationally choose not to vote because the results are what they expect if they did vote. Many citizens rationally choose to vote I think because if they did not vote then they would feel any resulting policy they did not like was partially their fault. Each citizen decides, election by election, whether they can live with the partial blame for policy not going their way and how likely they are to get the policy they want without participation.
Using this line of thinking, young democracies would have rationally high participation because there is great uncertainty about the election results. Older democracies have more established party systems, so the election and resulting policy results are more predictable, hence rationally lower voter participation rates.
I'm glad I can vote. I'm glad I have the right *not* to vote.
If people are not happy with their elected officials and the state of the Government - Federal, State, County or City. The only way to change it is to vote for a different public officials.
ReplyDeleteTherefore, if you do not vote, you do not have a right to complain. You had the choice to vote and you did not.
YJ Draiman