Expressively Unhappy: A Voting Dilemma
The other day I got a letter informing me that "this year more Virginians than ever are voting! Don't be left behind!" Aside from the obvious confusion of why anyone would think a postcard is the best way to convince a twenty-year-old college student to vote, my public choice immediately questioned: am I not much less inclined to vote if more Virginians than ever are voting? As more and more people vote my expected benefit of voting gets lower and lower as more and more people crowd out any chance I have at a deciding vote.
But beyond this, I wondered why it is that more people than ever are voting this year. Compared to previous years the sentiment feels like each side could be more enthusiastic about their own candidate, and as of October 1st 58% of Americans surveyed expressed they would want to see a third party according to this Gallup poll. Further, the graph below shows voter turnouts for primary elections in Virginia, which are relatively very low compared to previous years. Although you could argue that the numbers are low due to the inevitability of the two candidates, one of those two candidates is no longer running so it seems they were not so inevitable.
Although we talked about expressive voting to show support, we did not consider expressive voting out of severe disapproval of the alternative. The way I see it: partisan voters may feel one way or the other about their own candidate, but more so than in previous years are driven to vote so they can tell themselves they voted against the alternative.
No comments:
Post a Comment