The Voting Paradox of the Funk Parents

     “So what even is Public Choice?.” Earlier this morning I was sharing my class schedule with my mom, and she was very perplexed by the idea of this class. At first, when I tried to describe it, she thought like most people, that it was a class discussing economic policies in the political realm. In an attempt to make it more clear to her, I shared some of our topics from class, and we got into an interesting discussion about voting and rational abstention. She explained to me a very interesting example of the voting paradox we discussed in class that has been occurring within our own family.

    You see, historically, my mom has voted republican in most elections, while my dad has voted democrat in those same elections. Both of them vote in the same district of the same state - congressional district 5 of Tennessee. She explained that they are both very aware that when they go, often together, to the polls for an election, their votes cancel each other out. They know their votes aren’t decisive because they know for a fact it was matched by someone else of the opposing party. They see the irony of this and even make jokes about it, so why in the world do they keep voting? According to our readings, they are completely irrational! I asked them about their motivation and they both agreed that out of a spirit of patriotism and an appreciation for our respect to vote, we must go to the polls even if we know our vote won’t make a difference. For both of them, the utility from acting on their sense of civic duty fully outweighs the costs of voting. This does not surprise me at all coming from my mom. I know she receives large utility from doing patriotic things and her cost of voting is relatively low now that she only has one kid at home and works part time. What surprised me was to hear this from my dad. He has to take time away from his work, making the cost of voting relatively high, and isn’t the most patriotic guy compared to most people I know. Regardless, they both must receive a lot more utility than I realized from fulfilling this civic duty because they continue to go year after year to vote despite the high costs and knowing it doesn’t make any difference.