Hurricane Sandy and the Election

In class we have determined that voters suffer a high ratio of marginal cost to benefit when voting. In this upcoming election, Hurricane Sandy could throw in extra costs that will dissuade more people from going to the polls.

We have learned from Buchanan that the costs of casting a vote are much higher than the benefits. Because voters have such a small chance of affecting the election results, the benefit they may get from one candidate winning is infinitesimally small (We can express this with the equation MB = |B1-B2|p where B1 and B2 are the expected benefits of either candidate winning, and p is the probability that the vote cast is the deciding vote, p can be in the ballpark of 1/100,000,000). On the other hand the costs are relatively high: the opportunity costs of not working or shifting time resources away from normal activities to voting, the costs of going to the polls (gas, etc.) and the costs of figuring out who to work for clearly trump the benefits of voting.

We also learned that those that do vote most often gain utility from "pulling the lever," the social stigma of not voting, civic duty, and irrational overestimation of the value of p in the above equation. For these people, the benefit does not come from the expected gains from one candidates' victory, but other exogenous factors. 

The article about the effects of Hurricane Sandy on voting concerns the voters who have the benefits discussed above. It says their "priorities might still be dealing with the storm's aftermath rather than a trip to the polls." Analysts speculate that the added costs imposed on voters because of the effects of the storm will result in a new marginal cost that will be higher than their marginal benefit, thus driving down voter participation rates.