Voting’s low decisive-ballot probability makes it irrational absent citizen-duty benefits

Evidence

According to Downs (1957), it may not be rational for an individual to register and vote in large elections because of the very low probability that the individual would cast a decisive vote coupled with the costs of registering and going to the polls. Objections to Downs’s view were raised by Riker and Ordeshook (1968), who argued that an individual may derive from voting other benefits besides the possibility of casting a decisive ballot. These additional benefits are collectively referred to as citizen’s duty, or D, and they include affirming one’s allegiance to the democratic system, complying with a powerful ethic, participat-ing in a common social ritual, as well as “standing up and being counted.” To these rational consequences of voting, we suggest adding a somewhat less rational component. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 2513

Categorization

• DEFINE: Lays out the Downs paradox and the citizen-duty (D) term as the standard resolution.
• SEED: The irreducible ‘less rational component’ being added could seed an essay on how emotional/prospect-theoretic factors, not just civic duty, sustain mass voting.
• DEEPTHINKING: This is the puzzle at the foundation of all mass political participation — how rational individuals sustain a collective act their logic says is pointless. The chapter seems poised to resolve it through prospect theory.
• XREF: connects to: Declining voter turnout may express rational withdrawal from insignificant politics. — Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration: A New Theory of…, 718