In
an age where many individuals are choosing not to vote in political elections, candidates
and their strategists are looking for new ways to incentivize the voting process in order to gain more support from “low-propensity voters.”
Direct appeals to increase voter turnout have failed in the past, suggesting
that more and more voters may be engaging in rational abstention, a concept we’ve
examined a fair amount in class this semester. The new incentive methods being explored
for the upcoming presidential election are more subtle, ranging from calling up
voters to ask them what they’ll be doing on election day, thus triggering a
“voting habit” through creating mental cues, to tapping into social networks
such as Facebook in order to forge “chat connections” that can influence people
to go to the polls, to actually gathering personal data about individuals to
use later in order to pressure them into voting. It is the final item on this
list that interests me most; strategists affiliated with both parties are
considering publishing information detailing how frequently individuals and
their peers have voted in past elections. As Charles Duhigg writes in the New York Times article linked above:
“Calling out people for not voting, what
experts term 'public shaming,' can prod someone to cast a ballot.”
This approach may raise the effect of social stigma as a
counterforce to rational abstention. Though people may still feel that their
vote doesn’t truly count (at least not enough to outweigh the costs of going to
the polls on election day), the negative consequences of this “public shaming”
may increase the costs of not voting to such an extent that more people will
show up to cast a ballot in order to avoid the distain of their peers. This could be considered a good thing for the
democratic process overall, since with more people voting, public opinion will
be reflected more accurately. However, the ethical implications of essentially
blackmailing citizens into voting are quite sinister, in my opinion, and it
seems important to consider that this tactic may alienate voters who feel they
cannot trust political candidates who support such devious schemes, thus
creating a counter-counter-effect to rational abstention, and discouraging
citizens from voting once again.
1 comment:
Grace makes some good points on the negative effects of "public shaming" in order to increase voting numbers. Another, rather large, negative effect of these actions is that, while they may effectively combat rational abstention, they do not do anything to prevent rational ignorance. One could argue that simply increasing voter turn out does not restore the flaws in our democratic process. As Johnson explained, a primary knowledge in a subject is relatively costless to a person, however the more in depth the information learned, the higher the opportunity cost of that time learning that could be spent on something else. Unfortunately in today's political media, the headlines making the most splash are one's like "Romney fires Big Bird!" and other nonsensical propaganda, so this primary knowledge to rationally ignorant voters (who are swayed to actually vote by these new shaming tactics) may not give them a true understanding for the candidate for whom they should cast their vote. This could prove even more detrimental to our democratic process, as the government will most likely fail to be an accurate representation of its citizens.
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