According to this WSJ article, voters in New Jersey "appeared to show record apathy" in the elections this past Tuesday. The voter turnout was at at a record low of 26%. The article suggests that a lack of competitive races and a "district map favoring incumbents" are in part responsible for this unusually low turnout. However, the WSJ mistakenly labels this situation as one of voter apathy. If the lack of competitive races were in fact the primary causes of low turnout, then New Jersey residents were not being apathetic -- they were, as Johnson would say, rationally abstaining. According to Johnson's analysis, it is only rational for a voter to go vote if the individual benefits of voting are greater than the individual costs. In this case, the voters may care very much about the outcome of the races. However, if they believe that the races are not competitive (whether because of the district lines or for other reasons), then they will view their individual vote as being unable to have any effect on the outcome. It would therefore be a waste of time and energy to vote (the costs would outweigh the benefits).
The article also that mentions that Connecticut voter turnout this year was no lower than usual, despite officials' fears that the snowstorm would cause the voter turnout rate to drop. The worries of government officials are consistent with Johnson's analysis, and so it is interesting that their worries turned out to be incorrect. We would have expected that fewer people would have gone to the polls this year, because the snowstorm its related effects should have increased the individual costs of voting (for instance, many people left the state due to power outages, and so it should be much more difficult for these people to get to the polls).
1 comment:
I agree that this article definitely misnames the reasons for why voter turnout was low. It seems as though the weather, the distribution of the districts, and a Democratic hold gave voters more than a reason as ever to not go to the polls. Although the behavior of the voters may indeed be apathetic it is misleading of the WSJ to assume that this apathy is disconcerting because all these factors make it logical for the voters to abstain.
Johnson would agree with your assessment that apathy is a misnomer and is preventing the government from finding solutions to decrease the amount of voters that choose to rationally abstain. Making the voting system more convenient like voting online could greatly decrease the amount of voters that would otherwise abstain because it is such an inconvenience. Also making sure the districts are fairly distributed so parties have better representation would give people a more rational reason to visit the polls. The article should not have focused on the voter "apathy" but why the local government seems to give the voters more reasons than ever to rationally abstain.
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