In 2016, both of my grandparents voted for Hilary Clinton in Birmingham, Alabama. Arguably, both of them knew that their vote would not decide the outcome of Alabama’s electoral college position in the 2016 election, where Donald Trump won twice as many individual votes as Hilary Clinton (Wikipedia). However, I do think that both of them voted rationally given techniques described by Mueller.
I think my grandmother practiced expressive voting: she knew that the instrumental value of her vote for Hilary was incredibly low. However, she cares deeply & vocally about issues like Medicare, immigration, abortion, and agreed strongly with Hilary’s stances on these hot-button issues. Voting for Hilary (and talking about voting for Hilary) was a way to signal her approval towards liberal social policies, even if Hilary never won office or passed any policies.
I think that my grandfather practiced minimax regret voting: he finds Clinton “rather unpleasant,” but finds Trump “absolutely unbearable.” The only benefit to Hilary Clinton winning was Donald Trump losing; he didn’t particularly care for Hilary to hold office, but really didn’t want Donald Trump as president. So, the only non-negligible outcome of his minimax matrix was the outcome where he didn’t vote, but the overall presidential election came down to one vote deciding the election for Trump in Alabama. The probability of this situation is, by all accounts, virtually 0. However, my grandfather must have realized he would feel extreme regret in this case, and so deemed it worthy to drive to the polls & earn his mighty “I Voted” paraphernalia.
No comments:
Post a Comment