This September marked the beginning of Rick and Morty's sixth season. In episode two, Rick: A Mort Well Lived, Morty has been fragmented into 5 billion pieces- in the form of non-playable characters (NPCs) in the show's iconic virtual reality arcade game, Roy: A Life Well Lived. To save Morty, Rick joins as the player character Roy, and must attempt to convince the collective, 5 billion NPC Mortys, to escape the game with him. Rick must escape with as many Mortys as possible, to ensure that the whole, united Morty successfully represents the 5 billion fragments. As you can imagine, Rick's mission exhibits many of the problems encountered in public choice.
Although the Mortys do not line up at the polls to cast their votes, they "vote with their feet" (thank you Tiebout) by either escaping with Rick or staying in the game. We see the rational voter in of the objections to leaving: "we're basically giving up our lives to become a part of a stranger". Although voting does not generally come at such a high cost, individuals who vote incur a cost for little payoff- like becoming one five-billionth of a voice in a whole- making the act of voting irrational. Rick understands this; As he plans to leave the resistant 8% of Morty behind, one five-billionth of Morty threatens, "I'm not leaving without all of me". Rick replies, "What? Oh no, let me crunch these numbers. 8% of five billion plus one- My God, if you stay, it changes nothing! Bye."
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