REASONS FOR VOTING

by F Richard Singer III         edition date 11/07/07

website: www.conceptualstudy.org      email: richardsinger3@sbcglobal.net

Political Alternatives: A major barrier to a wider recognition of political alternatives involves both understanding and attitudes. In particular, it involves a limited understanding of and competence in making conceptual distinctions. This is not surprising, given the effects that public (as well as any form of traditional) schooling has on students’ ability to think clearly about a variety of issues. Using The Worlds Smallest Political Quiz is an effective way to initiate an understanding of a conceptual distinction that most people have not even considered. Educating the public about the limitations of a one-dimensional political classification is extremely important, and this Quiz is a simple and interesting way to accomplish this. Perhaps this may also help implement the more difficult goal of changing their attitudes towards political alternatives.

I would like to suggest designing another small political quiz entitled Reasons for Voting. Simple mathematical analysis show that with decided voters evenly split and with 7000 voters who are equally likely to vote in either one of two ways, the probability that one additional vote could change the result is less than 1%. Furthermore if the decided voters are unevenly split this probability is far less. All such probabilities can be calculated easily from a simple formula that can be implemented on the calculator that comes with Microsoft Windows. Yet most people talk as if affecting the outcome of an election is the main reason to vote. The advantage this gives to major parties is tremendous. The quiz I imagine would suggest about 5 reasons for voting and ask for a rank ordering of these reasons. The Constructivist Learning section of my website has a dialog type learning resource entitled Coin Flipping and Voting Probabilities. The reasons I have in mind are suggested in several places in the dialog. This along with The Worlds Smallest Political Quiz suggested the possibility of a Reasons for Voting quiz. I would like to help design such a quiz. I need help in formulating the ideas, especially in regard to classifying types of attitudes towards voting and what kinds of responses are indicative of these attitudes.

Conceptual Competence: One of my reasons for liking mathematics is because that was the one place in school where my own rational thinking was totally independent of arbitrary authority, altho mathematics is seldom taught in a way that makes this apparent to most students. In the seventh grade I had an argument with a mathematics teacher. He had the class vote on who was right or wrong. Altho some of the students knew I was right, you can guess who the class sided with, I must admit that I benefited from this ludicrous lesson in democracy and that it even reinforced my faith in my own ability to reason. During the years I taught in a traditional school setting, I must admit that it was hard to focus on helping students learn to regard mathematics as a way of thinking. The many years I spent teaching at a college level, and especially in teaching mathematic for secondary school mathematics teachers, reinforced my appreciation both of the empowering nature of mathematical thinking for some students and of the difficulty of this power emerging in traditional classrooms. I still design resources that I hope will have some influence in schools, but even more I would like to see them used in home-schooling. The resource I mentioned above, while primarily focusing on mathematics has a broader purpose. Below are two excerpts from this resource. Comments on this or anything else would be welcome.

Except from the overview of this resource:

Sections 1 and 2 are both group-plan constructivist-learning resources followed by a dialog type resource in which imaginary students use the plan. The group-plan is for any group of four or more students who are learning about probability concepts. The dialog is primarily for mentors, altho it could also be used by the students. Section 1 is intended both to help students appreciate some of the mathematical concepts involved in probability and to obtain a feeling for how mathematical probabilities relate to what actually happens in coins flipping trials. Section 2 presupposes basic probability concepts and applies them to simple voting situations and on how voting probabilities might relate to reasons for voting. Altho an expanded perspective will suggest more live options, I am not advocating anything other than a flexible perspective that will make for a better discussion of the reasons different people might have for voting. Of course I am not disinterested. I hope that this will result in a less simplistic attitude towards voting and a greater openness to options that might otherwise be dismissed by adopting a rigid or narrower attitude.

Excerpt from a fictional discussion on reasons for voting:
Jo: Latter when we study combinations, you will find that with 100 fully undecided voter the probability that they will split 60 to 40 for candidate H is about 1%. Thus if candidate T has a lead of 20 decided voters, the probability of single vote being crucial is only about .01 or 1/8 what it would be if the voters were evenly split. With 10000 fully undecided voters candidate and T having a 2% vote lead, the probability is about .001. For a 3% lead it is less than .0001. Using the calculator on my computer and the formula for combinations these probabilities, it took very little time to obtain these probabilities.

Bob: So not only does a larger the number of undecided voters decrease the probability of a vote being crucial; with an unbalanced split among decided voters also decreases this probability.

Roy: With over a 10% lead it would be 0.

Jan: Suppose we call the expected value of a vote being crucial its crucial value. Even if there was only .0001 probability of being crucial, its crucial value could be worth some effort to a candidate, altho I am not sure how to assign a numerical worth in order to this calculate a crucial value.

Bob: As a rough estimate, we could use the amount the candidate is willing to spend on a campaign. I looked up information on senate campaigns. Many spend well over 10 million dollars, and sometimes a significant amount of this is their own money. With only a .0001 probability that this single vote will be crucial, this makes the crucial value over $1000 for the candidate.

Roy: I am not sure expected value is an appropriate concept to use. For a $100 contributor the crucial value of that vote is only 1¢. This is not why campaign contributions are made.

Bob: I agree that votes are made for many reasons more important than being crucial. Margin of victory or loss is also important to candidates. A large victory margin has many advantages. A small margin in losing can be grounds for a comeback in a future election. However, I wanted to point out that even the crucial value may be significant for the candidate.

Kay: I think we can use expected value as merely a suggestive model. Any reasonable model should indicate that the crucial value for the candidate seems to be significant. For most voters it cannot be very high, so a voter will have other more important reasons for voting.

Jan: Not necessarily. Many people say that voting for a third party candidate is a wasted vote. It would seem that they are indicating that the crucial value of a vote is more important than other considerations.

Bob: Perhaps they have something else in mind. People also say that if too many people vote for a third party candidate then this could take away votes from the better major party candidate. The focus is not on the crucial value of a single vote.

Kay: Still, for most voters the crucial value of his or her vote is small whatever other people do. So I repeat that a voter who understands will have other reasons for voting.

Roy: Returning to my $100 contributor, I must admit the worth of a win is likely to far exceed the contribution. This contribution could provide political access. Furthermore, the probability that this contribution could influence the election is greater than the probability that a single vote will break a tie. The contributor hopes that his money will be used to influence more than a single voter.

Jan: I disagree with Kay. The worth of a win to a contributor may involve something other than political access. It can involve important social goals. The same can be said for many voters. The worth assigned to these can make a vast difference to them. For anyone who feels that the worth of having a candidate win is extremely high, the crucial value can be the most significant reason for voting.

Roy: For a person who says there is little difference between the candidates the crucial value could be insignificant. Perhaps this is why so many people do not vote.

Bob: Even if a person sees little difference between candidates or when the crucial value is insignificant for any other reason, that person my still decide to vote. In a safe district the crucial value of a vote is 0. About 400 of the 435 congressional districts are safe districts. In a presidential election, there are a number of safe states. The crucial value of a vote in any of these is also 0. This is one reason why presidential candidates do not focus on some states. Yet people in these states still vote.

Jan: As Bob and I observed earlier, the act of voting in B’s club is one of its core social practices. The same can be said about voting in a democracy. I do agree that this is a more important reason for some people than the crucial value, altho given the usual turnout it may be insignificant for others.

Kay: If we think in terms of expected value, the chance that a single vote can affect winning or anything else is much smaller in a major election than it would be in club election. However the values involved may be much higher, so the expected values could be just as high or even higher. It all depends on how important various matters are to the potential voter.

Bob: I have uncle who seldom votes for a major party. He has always said that the crucial value is insignificant to him in comparison to other factors. For one thing, he wants to have the status of being an independent voter.

Kay: I can also thin of various status considerations. For one thing, voting for a candidate who cannot win is gives you a different eligibility in a political discussion than you would have if you voted for the winning candidate.

Bob: Ballot access may be a another reason for voting, altho a single vote is also unlikely to be crucial for this.

Jo: We could continue this indefinitely. There are many of reasons voting choices, and I hope your appreciation of them has increased to some extent.