The basic formula for determining whether someone will vote, on the questionable assumption that people act completely rationally, is PB + D > C, where P is the probability that an individuals vote will affect the outcome of an election, B is the perceived benefit that would be received if that persons favored political party or candidate were elected, D originally stood for democracy or civic duty, but today represents any social or personal gratification an individual gets from voting, and C is the time, effort, and financial cost involved in voting. Since P is virtually zero in most elections, PB is also near zero, and D is thus the most important element in motivating people to vote. For a person to vote, these factors must outweigh C. Experimental political science has found that even when P is likely greater than zero, this term has no effect on voter turnout. Enos and Fowler (2014) conducted a field experiment that exploits the rare opportunity of a tied election for major political office. Informing citizens that the special election to break the tie will be close (meaning a high P term) has little mobilizing effect on voter turnout. -Voter Turnout Wiki
Posted on: Tue, 04 Nov 2014 15:27:56 +0000
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