Voting turnout(Ireland) The question of why voters bother to turn out to vote at all has stimulated a lively debate within political science. This arises from the fact that is extremely unlikely that the result of any major election will be decided by a single vote. Whether electors realise this or not, it is simple common sense that each individual vote, taken on its own, is almost certain not to make a difference to the eventual outcome of the election. Thus if voting is seen as an ‘instrumental’ act, undertaken to make some difference to the world, and if the act of voting is seen as costly in some sense, then going out and casting a vote does not seem a rational thing to do. Yet in the real world a lot of people do in fact vote. Does this mean that they wildly over-estimate the likely impact of their votes, or are simply irrational? This question is often referred to as the ‘paradox of turnout’ or the ‘calculus of voting’ problem within the professional literature
Posted on: Sat, 24 Jan 2015 13:31:10 +0000
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