Symbolic Voting?

"Modern politics is just as you should expect it to be when votes are cast by ignorant people taking advantage of a low-cost source of emotional gratification." - Jamie Whyte, "Fewer Voters Are Better Voters"

Americans across the nation will take time away from their busy lives today to do their part in keeping our democracy alive. But why? Many economists argue that voting is irrational—the costs outweigh the benefits. A lawyer can't rack up billable hours standing in line at the voting booth (at least not ethically!). True, voting doesn't take as long as it used to, but it still takes time away from other productive activities. And time is money. So the cost of voting is obvious and unavoidable.

The benefit, on the other hand, is less clear. One person's vote is unlikely to swing an election, so if the benefit of voting is the influence that one vote will have on the outcome, there's little point in doing it. That time would be better spent billing clients, browsing the Internet, or reading this blog. But people do in fact vote, despite the balance of costs over benefits, creating a puzzle sometimes known as the "paradox of voting."  A commonly suggested answer is that people enjoy voting; they're not voting for results; they're voting to vote. Hence, the "emotional gratification" referenced in the provocative quotation that prefaces this post. People vote for the same reason they eat potato chips—they like it.

But in his book "Law and Social Norms," Eric Posner argues that the common answer is wrong. In fact, people vote, not because they like it, not because it's fun per se, but because they care about their reputations. And voting, as a symbolic act, reinforces the opinions that their peers hold of them, as to whether they are cooperative, trustworthy people. That's why it's embarrassing not to vote. It sends a signal that you don't care to participate in our political system; that you aren't willing to pay the small price of a few hours of your time to help your country solve its problems. The effect that voting has on one's reputation tips the cost-benefit scale.

The hypothesis that voting is intrinsically enjoyable also tips the scale, so why should I believe the one over the other? Here are some supporting reasons and facts (suggested by Eric Posner) in favor of the voting-as-symbolic theory:

• Voting correlates with wealth and education. Rich, educated people are more likely to vote than poor, uneducated people. Yet rich, educated people bear higher opportunity costs for their time. Their time is "worth" more. They hypothetical lawyer mentioned earlier forgoes $75 for every 15 minutes not spent billing clients. That's a lot more (in absolute terms) than the grocery clerk loses. And since the cost of voting is higher, and the benefits under the voting-is-fun theory presumably the same, we should expect to see the opposite of what we see; we should expect a negative correlation, not a positive one; as the cost rises, people will spend their time on different, less expensive "goods" than voting. By contrast, the voting-is-symbolic theory posits that an activity cannot be symbolic—cannot signal underlying, "hidden" qualities—unless it is costly. If there's no sacrifice involved, everyone would do it—the good and the bad, the cooperative and the selfish. The signal would be drowned out by noise.

• Voting correlates with participation in organizations such as PTAs and charities. The voting-is-fun theory cannot explain this relationship as easily as the voting-is-symbolic theory; why should people who participate in charitable activities enjoy voting more than other people? The obvious answer is that the same types of people prefer both. But, again, why? The voting-is-fun theory has no answer. The symbolic-act theory suggests the answer by going directly to the source: participating in civic organizations and voting both send the same signals, and the same sorts of people will be driven to do both.

• Not-voting is embarrassing, as evidenced by the fact that people exaggerate and prevaricate about their owning voting behavior. This makes sense if people regard voting as an indication of character as opposed to an act of self-gratification. This does not make sense if voting is just about satisfying a preference: is it embarrassing to admit that you don't like the way garlic tastes? or that you prefer coffee over green tea? Well, maybe it is for people with low self-esteem, but voting is clearly different; very few people (other than, perhaps, some economists) will state that they don't vote because it doesn't seem worth their time.

That's enough argument for now. I'll be back soon with a few additional reasons for believing that it makes more sense to believe that people vote in order to protect their reputations than to believe, as Jamie White (whom I otherwise admire) apparently does, that they do so because they like to. One of these reasons addresses another element of the Jamie White quote from the outset of this post, namely the idea that voters are ignorant. This sounds like a put down, and in a way it is, but it turns out that not knowing who politicians are is actually quite rational. In fact, being ignorant is often a rational strategy. But more about that later...