Why does anyone bother to vote?

Daniel Hannan questions the conventional wisdom about political participation. He argues that we should make voting harder rather than easier so that people value it more. He's obviously one of those Tories who are against weekend voting.

While his suggestion is mischievous, there was wisdom in this Hannan observation:

The real reason that people don't vote is that they no longer see the point. This is especially true of local campaigns. The last council elections were, according to every commentator, the most important mid-term poll since Labour took office. Yet, of those who had bothered to register to vote, 62 per cent stayed home.

Even if you were in the 38 per cent who voted, ask yourself what you thought you were achieving.
The most interesting question in politics is not - why don't people vote? It is this - why do they bother?

If you multiply the material gain you anticipate making from any change in the political situation (the small alteration of political outcomes produced by a change in Government from new Labour to Cameron Conservative) by the probability that your vote will change the outcome (very small indeed) the expected gain from voting is almost certainly too small to justify anything but the most minute effort.

So what you would expect to see is stupid people, those incapable of rationally assessing the consequences of their actions, voting and clever people, who can work out it's worthless, staying at home.

Instead you get something close to the opposite.

This suggests that when people vote they are not trying to achieve material gain, but are seeking a way of establishing their identity as citizens and expressing themselves.

Political strategists seeking to move voters routinely look at material gain and how to offer it to voters. I think, in hard political terms, they are wrong to look at it quite like that.

Comments

[adam]

Why do you get something close to the opposite? Where's the evidence to suggest it's the smart people voting and the stupid ones staying at home.

I'd favour an economist's analysis of this - that different people put different values on their vote. It would be interesting to see whether there's a relationship between turnout and the odds of a change of government.

[ilana]

I absolutely do not understand people who don't vote. While it's true that the effect of one vote is infinitesimal, it really is the principle - people fought and died for each of us (and I'm a woman so even more so) to have a vote and we should never forget the alternative.

[Dave]

People vote, even though one vote is worthless, to comply with Kant's categorical imperative:

"Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law"

They may not be students of Kant, but I suspect their reasoning would follow a similar line - everyone choosing not to vote could produce a socially disastrous outcome, therefore I must do my bit by voting myself.

If you wish to look at it like an economist you need to consider the value that an individual (who agrees with the above ethical argument for voting) places on being able to see themselves as a morally sound, upstanding citizen. A person who derives enough pleasure from feeling that they are acting ethically to outweigh the cost of a walk to the polling station will vote.