VOTING ATTITUDES

By F Richard Singer III         09/16/08

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. That such a barrier exists is not surprising, given the effects that traditional schooling has on many students’ ability to think clearly about a variety of matters. Using The World’s 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 important, and this Quiz is a simple and interesting way to accomplish this. Perhaps this may also help implement the more difficult goal of expanding attitudes towards political alternatives.

I would like to suggest designing another small political quiz entitled A Small Voting Quiz. The central fact neglected by most voters is the minimal effect of their vote in any election involving a large number of voters. Not only is the effect of a single vote negligible in effecting who wins, it is small in terms of all of its social effects. Simple mathematics shows 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 a single vote could determine the result is less than 1%. It is much less if the decided voters are unevenly split. Yet many people talk as if affecting who wins is the main reason for choosing how to vote. This gives a tremendous advantage to major parties. The quiz I imagine would suggest other reasons. This along with The World’s Smallest Political Quiz suggested the possibility of a voting quiz. This present paper sketches some attitudes towards voting that such a quiz might illuminate. I would like to design such a quiz, but need help in formulating it concisely.

The Core Reason to Vote: Beneath any reasons for voting choices there is a primary reason to vote, namely that in a democratic community voting is both a fundamental and a core social practice. It is fundamental because a community cannot be democratic without it (or without some other way to try to equalize opportunities for significant participation in the political life of the community). Regardless of any other effect a person’s vote may have, the significance of voting is that it helps maintain a robust democratic community. Moreover the fact that a single vote is unlikely to have a significant social effect in this matter (or in any other), doesn’t vitiate this primary civic reason to vote. Perhaps even more important, the primary personal reason to vote is that voting is a core social practice. Being a voter is one of the ways in which a person can truly belong to a democratic community. A person who votes has a different status than a person who doesn’t. A voter is eligible to be taken seriously in ways that a non-voter is not. The reasons for voting choices are important, but secondary to these primary reasons to vote. Nor is it to be expected that reasons for voting choices will be the same for everyone. However the most significant difference in voting attitudes of those who are eligible to vote is between those who vote and those who do not vote.

Voting Choice Attitudes: I focus on attitudes that apply to voting for a candidate for major political offices. These can be easily modified to apply to candidates for other offices or to referendums. There are at least three distinct but interrelated election effect concepts that relate to reasons for a voting choice, namely {win, mandate, support}. Win is binary type concept. These others are cumulative type concepts. While a single vote is unlikely to be crucial for winning, when a candidate C wins, each pro or con vote either cumulatively increases or decreases the amount of C’s mandate. Moreover the extent of C’s mandate can have a significant effect on what C can do. Likewise when C loses, each pro vote adds a cumulative amount of support for C, and each con vote cumulatively decreases C’s future political prospects. In spite of the fact that the overt focus of an election is on winning, the main impact of each vote is some minimal effect on mandate and support. Moreover in spite of all the focus on winning, most voters seem to at least implicitly have some support or mandate attitudes.

Interrelated with the win-mandate-support attitudes are temporal attitudes that influence reasons for voting choices. A voter may take a predominantly near-term or long-term attitude about voting, altho it is also possible to strongly take both. An intermediate-term attitude can also be taken. A near-term voter focuses on the outcome of the current election and what effect this has on various matters during the term of the office. This effect depends not only on winning, but also on the extent of the mandate or lack of it. It also depends on a broad range of circumstances that impinge on the office holder, many of which defy prediction. A long-term voter thinks in terms of decades or centuries or even longer. In general we might expect winning and mandate to be more significant to near-term voters, whereas support might be more significant to intermediate or long-term voters.

In addition to the above voting attitudes, there are some goal-oriented attitudes that relate to reasons for voting choices. A voter may see the political realm as a means of enhancing the prudential and hedonic interests of the voter and the people that are significant to the voter. Believing that C will work towards such interests, such as economics or personal safety, can be another significant reason for voting for C. The weight may be higher if it involves adding to the mandate of a competent advocate of the voter’s interests. However adding support to a losing candidate who cares about a voter’s interests can have an incremental effect on the winning candidate and may even have some effect on the next election. The fact that C endorses a voter’s social values and ideals can be a strong reason to vote for C, altho C may endorse such values and ideals but place little priority on implementing them. Even so, some weight may be given to this factor. Another voter goal is to have office holders who have characteristics the voter considers appropriate to one who would hold the office in question. Characteristics that come to mind include integrity, honesty, courage, leaderships, competence, loyalty, etc. Altho other goal-oriented attitudes could be mentioned, these seem to cover the most prevalent. To keep them in focus, they can be designated as {interests, values, characteristics}.

Finally party allegiance is another attitude that relates to reasons for voting. For many voters, the significance in voting for C includes voting for the party to which C belongs. This may even be the main significance to the voter, who may have more allegiance to the party than an interest in C. Whether this is or is not considered a strong reason for a voting choice is a major distinction between two voter attitudes, namely party voters and independent voters. Of course being either can be a matter of extent. Moreover we usually give a party indicator for a party voter, since this is a primary component of a party allegiance attitude.

Concept Utility: It should be noted that what has been said above is descriptive and intended only to help in thinking about voting attitudes and how to classify them. The classification is intended to be non-judgmental. Almost any attitude can be implemented either prudently or imprudently, rationally or irrationally, etc. Hopefully these concepts can help provide voters with a framework for understanding their own voting attitudes and reflecting on whether these attitudes are the ones they find most useful. Such a framework can also help voters better understand and appreciate the voting attitudes of others. However these concepts only provide an initial framework and much more needs to be added to make it more useful. For instance knowing that a person P is an interest voter merely provides a starting point for identifying which of P’s interests are relevant to P’s voting attitudes. Different interests give rise to different attitudes. Similar remarks apply to the other goal-oriented attitudes. Moreover many voters have a mixture of goal oriented attitude types, along with different priorities both within a type of goal and between types. Such matters are developed in an extension of this paper that will be available on the above website.

The Wasted Vote Attitude: There is a common attitude that voting for anyone who does not have a chance to win is a wasted vote. Moreover many people apply this not only to themselves, but to others as well. Altho such an attitude seems somewhat vague, it seems to implicitly denigrate both a long-term attitude and a mere support attitude. It seemingly presupposes that only a primarily near-term win (perhaps plus mandate) attitude is reasonable. Examined more closely the concept of a chance to win a major office cannot be taken literally. If it were, most of the recent votes for losing candidates in congressional districts would have been wasted. This follows logically from the fact that about 90% of those districts were actually known in advance to be safe districts. Likewise even in a presidential election, votes are actually for a slate of electors, and votes for the losing slate in non-battle ground states would be wasted. Of course almost nobody actually interprets the concept of a chance to win in that way. Implicitly they usually consider both Democrats and Republicans as having a chance to win, even when only one of them actually has a chance to win. This may be because almost everyone is to some extent a support voter and to some extent an intermediate-term voter. It is the extent (rather than the existence) of such attitudes that differentiates voter attitudes. Even knowing an election will be lost; voters support the losing candidate and look towards the next election. This is especially the case in a presidential election, where voters in most states know in advance which candidate will receive the state’s electoral vote. What most people with a wasted vote attitude seem hard to understand is voting from a primarily long-term support perspective. The most straightforward concept of a wasted vote is ‘a vote that could have been made but was not’. This concept could also be reasonably extended to votes that voters make without an understanding of their own voting attitudes. Understanding this wasted vote concept might even help some those who distrust politicians see some reason to vote.

Modifications and Additions to be developed in an Expanded Version:

Do more on the concept of a crucial vote. A single vote is almost never crucial to winning, i.e. it almost never determines the winner. However votes do determine who wins. Discuss a perspective on this as it relates to ‘The If Everyone Perspective’. Include the fact that to significantly help C win, a person must do more than just vote, and a voter is eligible to so in ways that a non-voter is not.

Introduce a more systematic scheme for parameters

As each parameter is conceptualized, give example of sample voter types. Illustrate how some same general types might have radically different attitudes, especial for the goal-oriented parameter but also for each of the other parameters.

Relate these parameters to elections with fewer voters and to referendums.

Discuss probabilities and give formulas and reference to the paper on voting probabilities.