Make Voting Worth My While

            A recent economist article observes that political campaigns concentrate on getting their own supporters to get out and vote rather than trying to convince the undecided or opposition voters. This seems like irrational behavior if you assume that everyone will vote (why preach to the choir?), but from the perspective of self-interested voters, it makes perfect sense.  The benefit of voting, for a strong partisan with a $100,000 valuation on the outcome, is only 1 cent, even in a swing state. For undecided or ambivalent voters that benefit is thousandths of a penny, so it is not even worth trying to get them to the polls.

            Under this reasoning, the goal of a campaign worker is to make the equation of cost and benefit come out on the side of voting for these strongly opinionated voters. They lower the cost of voting by providing “student Democratic volunteers bustling about with iPads and smartphones, ready to tell them which is their polling station and to provide directions.” Campaigners can also try to add an external benefit to voting by “e-mailing (the republican club’s) members with details of where to vote, and sending them to the polls in gaggles.” It’s a voting party! It’s fun! Some politicians even try to misrepresent the statistical probability of a deciding vote with misleading phrases like “your vote mattes.”  . Politicians also try to increase the value one places on the election directly with direct subsidies to specific subsets of voters. As one campaign representative points out in his sales pitch, “politicians decide such things as tuition fees and student-loan interest rates and that thanks to Barack Obama, young graduates can stay on their parents’ health insurance.”

            This analysis would suggest that winning an election is not about convincing the majority you are right, but rather, it is about getting people to vote in the first place.