turnout and elections

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LECTURE NOTES

UCLA Department of Political Science Fall 2010PS 40 Introduction to American Politics Prof. Thomas Schwartz

HUNK 15 POLITICAL PARTICIPATION, OR WHO VOTES?

So far we have studied three branches of government – the courts,

Congress, and the executive. Now we turn to the fourth branch: you all, the

citizenry. In the remainder of the course we ask how you - - voters, parties,

interest groups - - affect politics.

Political Participation by Citizens

There are many ways to participate in politics. One is to vote.

Voting has four steps:

- Register to vote. This once was a hard step; now it is easy

- Go to the polls. - Select a subject on which to vote – a particular

office or ballot issue.

- Make a choice - - pick one of the options - - and record it as

instructed.

Other forms of participation:

- Write to an office holder.

- Speak publicly.

- Persuade others privately.

- Join associations (Sierra Club, trade organizations, labor unions,

NRA, etc.).

- Contribute money to political campaigns. (In most other countries

campaigns are

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publicly financed.)

- Join a party. - Work for a party or candidate organization

- Run for office.

Why Vote?

It is hard to explain who votes and how, because it is hard to explain why

people vote at all. The paradox of not voting is that one vote makes no

difference, so why bother to vote? - - but people do. In other words, because a

single vote never makes a difference, it is hard to explain voting the same way

we explain other acts. The act of voting is a puzzle.

When is it rational to vote? Compare this question with another: When is it

rational to gamble?

Let a coin be tossed. When is it rational to bet on heads?

Consider the following decision matrix (or table). It looks a bit like PD and

other games, but it is not a game at all because, instead of two or more

players, it has but one. He is playing against “nature,” or “chance,” not against

another player.

“Bet” and “Don’t bet” are strategies. “Heads” and “Tails” are states of

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nature. It is rational to bet only if the probability of winning times the amount

of winnings is greater than or equal to the cost of betting, that is,

Rational if

p x winnings ≥ bet.

Suppose:

p = .05 (the coin is fair)

bet = $1

and

winnings = $2.50

Then

0.5 x 2.50 = 1.25 > 1.

So it is rational to bet.

But now suppose that winnings are only $0.75. Then the bet is irrational.

Or suppose the potential winnings stay at $2.50 but the probability of heads

drops to 0.25 (an unfair coin). Then the bet is irrational.

We can apply the same kind of logic to ask when it is rational to carry an

umbrella. Say it rains with probability p. Then it is rational to carry an umbrella

if and only if:

p x value of staying dry (compared with getting wet) ≥ cost of carrying

umbrella. Let p = 0.1, cost = 0.5, and value of staying dry = 10. Then it is

rational to carry an umbrella if

0.1 x 10 ≥ 0.5,

which of course is true. The expected payoff (gain) from carrying an

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umbrella (0.1 x 10) exceeds the cost (0.5), so it is indeed rational to carry an

umbrella.

Suppose, however, that the cost of carrying the umbrella were not 0.5 but

2.0. Then it would no longer be rational to carry an umbrella.

Now compare gambling and umbrella carrying with voting.

Here, f is the voter’s favorite candidate: he votes for f or does not vote at

all. The cost of voting is the opportunity cost - - the value of forgone benefits,

such as sleeping, watching T.V., or (best of all) studying political science.

Judged as usual, it is rational for a voter to vote for f if and only if the

probability that his vote will make a difference (p) multiplied by how much he

stands to gain by f’s victory equals or exceeds the cost of voting, that is,

p x value of f ≥ cost of voting

Suppose that

cost of voting = $1

value to voter of having f win = $90,000

and

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p = 1/100,000.

With these values, which are unrealistically favorable to the voter’s calculus,

the inequality is not satisfied. It is irrational to vote.

At least according to this way of assessing the rationality of actions,

voting seems irrational. If anything, the probability that a person’s vote will be

pivotal or decisive is generally much smaller than 1/100,000.

[Hitler was elected head of the Nazi Party by one vote, and President

Andrew Johnson escaped impeachment conviction by one vote. But the voters

were a small group, not a public electorate.]

Why, then, do people vote?

Several hypotheses have been entertained: - -

One is that the election is close. But not all elections are close, and even

unusually close ones are never decided by one vote. It is true that a voter is

more likely to be pivotal in a close election than in a not-so-close election. But

that is like saying a tall man is more likely than a short man to bump his head

on the moon.

Another hypothesis is that voters make a mistake, believing their act is

efficacious although it really is not—a belief encouraged by turnout

propaganda. But it is hard to believe that such a simple error would be so

popular for so long.

A third hypothesis is that voting is not very costly - - or most people don’t

find it so. True, we are a lazy species: we prize leisure. But for that very reason

we forego little of value by voting. Besides, we are also a restless and

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gregarious species: sitting still in solitude often fails to please, however

inconsequential the alternatives. Even so, this hypothesis identifies no positive

payoff from voting. At most it helps explain voting.

A fourth hypothesis links voting to acts of charity: we are inclined to be

altruistic, to help our fellows, to benefit society and not merely ourselves. True,

but an inconsequential act benefits no one.

A better hypothesis is that we are disinclined to free ride: we feel it is

unfair to profit from the efforts of others (those who share our political ideals)

without pitching in ourselves.

Possibly the most popular hypothesis is that citizens see voting as their

duty and receive some gratification from doing their duty. This hypothesis

modifies the above rationality condition to say that voting is rational if and

only if p x value of winning + D ≥ cost, where D is the gratification that comes

from doing one’s duty.

A more general hypothesis is that the act of voting has not only

investment value but also consumption value. This means that the act of

voting is important not only because it helps the voter further his aims but also

because he finds the act itself gratifying. Most of our acts have both

investment and consumption value. Think of eating, sleeping, drinking, and

procreating. A good job has both kinds of value: it supports you but you enjoy

it too. Still this is a weak hypothesis because D is hard to measure, because it

is hard to predict in advance whether D is great enough to spur voting, and

because it is hard to tell thereby why some people vote while others do not.

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A problem similar to the paradox of not voting involves the act of

acquiring information about politics. Why would anyone spend time learning

about the issues and candidates? Why would anyone read the newspaper?

In response, one might focus on the consumption value of learning about

politics. This would suggest that newspaper editors who are interested in

increasing their publications’ readership often have to resort to including juicy

tidbits of gossip in articles about politics. Sensationalism is often the only way

of getting people to read. It gives the act of reading more consumption value.

Similar Problems of Participation

One can also ask, Why contribute money? or Why join a party or interest

group?

In both of these problems the logic is similar. You have to choose between

participating and not participating (contributing money, joining a group, etc.).

Your payoff from participating depends on what everyone else does. You are

playing a game with everyone else who shares your interests. The game is a

multi-player PD. Here are your payoffs:

This prisoner’s dilemma is in essence the septic-tank problem discussed

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in Hunk One.

The problem is that your action makes no difference. No matter what

“everyone else” does – participate or not – you are always better off not

participating, not contributing to the shared goal. Your incentive is to free-ride

on the effort of others.

To sum up: It is hard to explain participation, for two reasons. One is that

participation is not like most other behavior: a single vote makes no difference.

Yet a good explanation cannot imply that no one votes. The other reason is

that participation varies: some people participate and others do not. A good

explanation of participation has to be able to account for variation: it cannot

imply that everyone votes.

Who Votes?

Let us now take a different tack. Instead of asking why, let us ask who and

examine the variation just remarked.

Initial studies of voting found that the rich were more likely to vote. Why

would richer people vote more? Plausible reasons:

• They are more knowledgeable about politics.

• They have more time.

• They are more likely to have personal acquaintances running for office.

• They stand to lose more if election outcomes go against their preferences.

• They are less likely than poor people to feel alienated from the system.

• They feel more efficacious, or potent.

All these reasons were suggested, at one time or another, by students.

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Note that none mentions cost. Maybe that is as it should be: voting is not that

costly. People like going out and doing things. They are generally not so lazy

that the act of voting proves too cumbersome. Instead, people are gregarious

and restless. They also like to talk about having done things. This observation,

in combination with the fact that people do have a sense of civic duty, is a nice

potential explanation.

At first, political scientists thought along similar lines. They found that

wealth or income was positively correlated with voting, thought that wealth

drove (caused) voting, and considered some of the explanations just surveyed.

They were wrong. It was education, not income, that was the real cause of

voting.

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It turned out that the observed correlation between income and voting was

spurious. Educated people voted more, and educated people tended to be

richer. Therefore, income appeared to drive voting. In reality, when people

with the same educational level were compared, their differences in income

had scant effect on their likelihood of voting. Differences in income mattered

only to the extent that they were associated with differences in education. But

when people with the same income were compared, their likelihood of voting

increased with their level of education.

Another example of spurious correlation: When people wear warmer

clothes, they catch more colds. Of course, it is not the wearing of warm clothes

that’s causing the colds but of a third factor, cold weather, that’s causing both

the colds and the wearing of warm clothes. Again, the more frequently people

hire lawyers the more likely they are to go to prison. Are criminal suspects

better off not hiring lawyers?

A spurious correlation arises when two factors (such as income and

voting) appear to be causally related but in fact are both caused by a third

factor (education).

Although income may in some sense be an acceptable “explanation” –

that is, knowing a persons’ income would help us to predict his likelihood of

voting – education is a superior explanation. Education explains more of the

variance we observe; if nothing else, it explains the differences we observe in

the likelihood of voting among people who have the same income.

Thanks to various studies, we now know the following things about who is

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more likely to vote:

1. Income. We already discussed this. Greater income is associated with

greater likelihood of

voting. BUT: the correlation is spurious, or noncausal.

2. Education. More educated people vote more than less educated people.

Someone who has

completed grade school is about 8 percent more likely to vote someone

who has not.

Someone who has completed high school is about 22 percent more like to

vote than someone

who has not. The difference in the likelihood of voting for a college

graduate and someone

with a graduate degree is not so great.

3. Age. The likelihood of voting is highest for people around 40 to 50 years

old. It declines

on both sides of this peak: the very young and the very old are the least

likely to vote.

4. Sex. When it comes to voting, men and women are similar until they

reach 65 or so. After

that, men are less likely to vote. Maybe men die sooner.

5. Marriage. Married people are more likely to vote than single people.

6. Mobility. The more mobile the person, the less likely he is to vote. This

makes sense:

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someone who moves a lot knows less about local office holders and the

issues facing his

community, and every time he moves he cancels his previous registration.

7. At first blush, race appears to have an effect on voting, but when one

controls for such

other factors as education, its effect vanishes. A person’s race does not

affect how likely he is

to vote.

8. Employment in the Public Sector. This makes quite a difference for

voting. Public

employees are much more likely to vote than others, (83 vs. 65 percent).

Maybe they know

more about public issues. Maybe they have a bigger stake in electoral

outcomes. Or maybe

they more often get time off to vote.

Key points to remember: turnout (voting) is boosted by education,

marriage, public

employment, and age, whereas race and income are spuriously correlated

with voting.

Variations in Turnout

Turnout varies, not only among population groups, but over time and

space. Turnout is: - -

• Lower since 1976. The onset of the decline in turnout coincides roughly

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with the time 18 year-olds were allowed to vote. (Test by looking at

earlier expansions of the electorate.) It also coincides with the peak of

disillusionment owing to Vietnam and Watergate. (Test by looking at

earlier periods of turmoil.)

• Lower in the South (less than 50 percent). The South was traditionally a

one- party region: Democrats dominated elections. Incumbents were

rarely challenged, so there was little incentive to vote. Also, blacks were

discouraged by such means as the poll tax and threats of violence. Now

the South is no longer a one – party region. Even so, turnout remains

relatively low, possibly out of habit. Also education has historically been

greater in other regions.

• Lower in Congressional (“Midterm”) elections. These take place in the

middle of the President’s term, when national awareness is lower and

issues are not so salient.

• Lower in the US than in Europe. US: 50-60 percent. Europe: 75-90 percent.

Why the difference between the U.S. and Europe? Some suggestions from

students:

• Longer intervals between elections in Europe makes people more excited

about voting.

• European countries usually have multiparty systems that make it easier

for voters to find a party they like.

• Europeans are more civic-minded, have a stronger sense of duty.

• European countries have had a shorter experience with democracy, so

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they value it more.

• European political systems are more social-democratic than ours:

government provides a strong “social” safety net for citizens and in

general plays a far greater role in their lives. Thus, Europeans have more

at stake during elections.

• Europeans pay more taxes and thus have a greater incentive to monitor

their government.

More professional explanations of low turnout in the US: - -

1) Apathy

2) Hard to register. (Harder, anyway than Europe, where everyone is

automatically

registered.)

3) Mobile voters. Compared to others, Americans move around a lot. Thus

it is less likely that they know or care much about local issues. Also

residency requirements make registering in new places a bit harder than

in Europe.

4) Mobile districts. Every 10 years, and sometimes more often,

congressional districts change. To make matters worse, there are a great

number of different kinds of districts (county, local, school board, etc.)

that cut across each other and are also changing over time. It is confusing:

you stand still while the electoral communities to which you belong keep

moving.

5) US voters vote much more frequently and on many more issues and

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candidates. In the US, within the course of four years a voter typically has

an opportunity to vote in many elections covering hundreds of issues and

candidates. By comparison, Europe has few elections, and typically each

election is about one office. So comparing turnout per election is

misleading. A fairer test of turnout would compare European turnout to

the percentage of US citizens who vote at least once in 4 years. Such a

test for the period 1972-76 reveals that the turnout in Europe and the US

is about the same: roughly 75 percent of eligible voters (and 95 percent of

registered voters). In other words, comparing U.S. and European turnout is

like comparing the food-consumption of cops and firemen in a town where

firemen eat one or two big meals a day (which they cook) while cops eat

quite a few smaller meals (at doughnut shops): do we compare average

meal sizes or average daily consumption?

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