Raising the Cost of Voting

Johnson in his article Voting, Rational Abstention, and Rational Ignorance presents a situation in which it is rational not to vote. For those who don't remember, the calculation for the benefit of voting is the absolute net value of a successful outcome (V1-V2) times the probability of one's vote being decisive (assigned as p). Johnson's argument is that p will be so small in most elections, the cost of voting for an average citizen will always outweigh the benefit of voting. Therefore it is rational to not vote. However, people still choose to vote and therefore there is some unknown in the equation that causes the marginal benefit of voting to be greater than the marginal cost. This post will highlight an interesting and often less emphasized part of Johnson's argument, the marginal cost.

In this article, the author is discussing a recent Supreme Court ruling that halts the practice of early voting in Ohio. Furthermore, Ohio has gotten rid of a Sunday of voting and evening hours as well. This is significant because according to the author, "the costs associated with voting - in lost pay, in childcare, in transit fares - are higher for minorities and the poor. Which is why they are among the largest beneficiaries of early, flexible voting." With the early voting eliminated, the cost of voting for minorities increase. Johnson would say that this would make it more rational for them not to vote because with the marginal cost of voting increasing, the likelihood of the marginal benefit outweighing that cost decreases. Many will point to this contentious issue as Republicans seeking to make the costs as high as they can for those who do not vote conservative and make the costs as low for those who do vote conservative.