The city of Los Angeles is considering paying its residents
to vote, a proposal aimed at increasing voter turnout. Last year, only 23.3% of eligible Los Angeles
voters cast ballots, leading city officials to consider methods of
incentivizing voting. In his article “Voting,
Rational Abstention, and Rational Ignorance,” Johnson argues that citizens do
not vote because the cost of voting exceeds the expected benefits. The costs involved in voting are numerous and
include becoming educated on the candidates and issues, missing work,
registering, waiting in line, and more.
The benefits derived from voting depend on the probability of casting a
decisive vote, which in Los Angeles is basically zero. However, the benefits of voting can increase when
there is social pressure to vote but since turnout rates are so low, clearly the majority of people are not affected by this pressure.
The proposal to compensate citizens for casting a ballot would clearly
increase the expected benefits from voting.
However, it is unlikely that compensation for voting would exceed or
even meet the costs of missing work and becoming informed on the issues and
candidates. A study conducted in
Lancaster, CA revealed that with a $25 incentive payment, the turnout rate
could be increased to 19.2% from an uncompensated turnout rate of 14.9%. This increase is not huge and indicates that monetary
incentives will not be a sufficient means of raising citizen’s expected
benefits above the costs.
While LA’s payment proposal focuses on increasing the
benefits of voting, other options that decrease the costs of voting could be
more effective. Such options include
automatic registration of eligible voters, being able to vote by phone, or
being able to vote on multiple days. A policy
that simultaneously increases the expected benefits of voting and decreases the
costs stands a better chance of spurring higher voter turnout.
1 comment:
Seeing as this case involves a mayoral election, it’s unsurprising that the voter turnout was so low. As Johnson writes in his article, “no country even comes close to the United States in the frequency and variety of elections.” 77.7% of the citizens of Los Angeles acted rationally by not voting, because they know that their vote really doesn’t count – as Sarah stated, their chances of deciding the outcome are basically zero. Out of the many elections that occur every year, the people decided that this was one they could afford to skip. In the article from the Washington Post, the point is brought up that a low voter turnout is typical of Los Angeles because of its immense size. While the incentive study in Lancaster, California was found to be successful, it would not apply to the city of Los Angeles. While there are about 159,000 people in Lancaster, the city of Los Angeles has a whopping 3,884,307 citizens. The means of providing a monetary incentive to this large a number might prove to be difficult for the government. An alternative that might be effective is that of penalization. Johnson discusses how several studies on this practice have also increased voter participation.
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