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Why Vote?
It might seem like a question with an obvious answer, but as the General Election approaches, is it really worth your while trekking to your local polling station to vote? And, moreover, is voting a rational decision?
How important is it that your party wins?
One of the key elements when deciding whether it is rational to vote is whether you can calculate what Anthony Downs calls your ‘party differential’. This is, broadly, the value (not necessarily just in terms of money) of the differential between your favourite party winning and your next favourite.
If you don’t have a major party preference, your ‘party differential’ could be quite small. However, if you hold views which are aligned with just one political party, you might find your ‘party differential’ is quite high. It’s important to you that one particular party wins the Election.
Will yours be the decisive vote?
How likely is it that the outcome of the General Election will be decided by one vote?
This situation requires that the winning party gets in by a majority of one seat and that the parties in your constituency would tie were it not for your vote. It’s not a very likely scenario, is it?
Working out the ‘value’ of your vote
Let’s say that the likelihood of a one seat majority of 1 in 500 and that the likelihood of a tie in your constituency of 1 in 30,000. However important it is to you that your favourite party wins; it is still a fraction of a chance that your vote will be the one that makes a decisive difference.
If you weigh up the cost of the shoe leather or petrol to take you to your nearest polling station, and the time it takes you to vote (and what else you could be doing with that time), then surely it is totally irrational to vote?
Three reasons you should vote
Another well-known political theorist, Howard Margolis, says ‘no’. He outlines three counter arguments why voting is a rational behaviour. These are:
1. If you expect your chosen party to do good things, you aren’t just expecting them to do these things for you; you expect them to do them for everyone. You’re doing something for the greater good
2. You are participating and encouraging the democratic process
3. You get a feeling that you have ‘done your bit’. Even if a donation you make to a famine charity doesn’t solve the problem, at least you can feel that you did your bit. The same is true in an election whether your party wins or loses
So, vote!
Very few of us will be able to say that it was our vote that made a critical difference to the outcome of the General Election on May 6th. Even in marginal seats, the majority creeps into hundreds and thousands and so one solitary vote is unlikely to decide the outcome.
However, the feeling that we have contributed to our party’s efforts, that we’ve tried to do the right thing for everyone and that we’ve upheld the democratic process should be more than enough to encourage us all to get our boots on and head to the polling station on Thursday.