Expressive Voting: How A Little Economic Education Can Go A Long Way

Comments by Dwight Lee before the 2004 NCEE/NAEE Annual Conference

Dwight R. Lee, the Ramsey Professor of Economics and Private Enterprise at the University of Georgia, has published over 120 articles in academic journals and over 100 articles and commentaries in magazines and newspapers and has coauthored eight books. He is a past president of the Association of Private Enterprise Education and the Southern Economic Association.

I’m delighted to be here and to have this wonderful opportunity to speak to all of you. And I want to thank each of you for the important work you are doing teaching economics.

You take a subject that most people find abstract and difficult, and you find ways to bring it to life, to cut through the complexity and explain it in interesting and exciting ways. The work you do quite literally makes the world more productive and prosperous because when people understand basic economic principles, they make better decisions as consumers, producers, investors and voters. And isn’t it interesting that I mentions voters, it just happens to be what I want to talk about this morning.

Let me begin by stating the obvious —Voting is important. It’s absolutely essential to our democratic process.

Voting is the way we inform our politicians about our priorities And motivate them to take those priorities into consideration. To do their best to promote the broad public interest. This is not easy. For reasons I will discuss, there are strong pressures on our political representatives to favor narrowly focused and organized interests by imposing costs on the general public.

And we are all members of some special interest and we all enjoy getting benefits from government that will be paid for by others.

I’m reminded of the story of the camp director who told the mother of a young camper that he was going to have to discipline her son for misbehavior. She responded by saying, “Well, please be gentle with him since he is a very sensitive young man. Why don’t you just slap the boy next to him and this will scare little Johnny into improving his behavior.”

And because voting is so important, it is also important to recognize that there are potential problems with voting as a way of communicating our interests to politicians And reducing the power of special- interests to use government to benefit at public expense.

Economics offers some interesting insights into some of those problems.

And I want to discuss some of them this morning.

This is a good place for a little commercial:
My wife, Cindy Crain, and I have a lesson plan on the EconEdLink site dealing with the economics of voting titled “Economics of Voting: What Do You Mean My Vote Doesn’t Count.” We hope many of you find it helpful.

Some may see my comments as controversial—As a challenge to strongly held views many of us have on voting and democracy on how voters should behave.

But my purpose is not to be controversial.

It is to present how economists attempt to explain why voters behave as they do, not how they should behave.

We can probably all agree on how we would like voters to behave—to become well informed and then go to the polls and vote.

But we don’t achieve those goals by refusing to objectively analyze why so many voters are poorly informed, and fail to vote.

Consider the following mathematical expression: 1/x
No one will consider it controversial when I say 1/x goes to 0 as x gets very large.

The statement I am about to make is based on math a little more complicated than 1/x going to zero, but it is no more controversial.

“The larger the number of people voting in an election, the smaller the probability that anyone’s vote will decide the outcome.” Or in most elections, the probability that your vote will be decisive is extremely close to zero.

For example, even if the vote is expected to be very close, with polls showing the public split 51-49 % (much less than the margin of error in even the best polls), and the number of other voters is only 200,000 (much less than almost any state election), the probability that your vote will be decisive is less than 1 in 12.3 million.

With a million other voters, the probability that your vote will be decisive is considerably less than 1 in a billion.

And when the vote is expected to favor one candidate, or issue by even a few percentage points, the probability that your vote will be decisive quickly drops to 1 in hundreds of trillions. And this is the case in most congressional elections. In 2002, for example, 4 out of 5 congressional elections were won by more than 20 percentage points.

In comparison to these probabilities, winning millions in a state lottery is almost a sure thing.

The implication is that from a narrow self-interest perspective, many people will see little gain to taking the trouble to become politically informed and going to vote. The personal cost will be seen as greater than any personal benefit in terms of affecting the outcome of the election.

This doesn’t mean that people think the outcomes of elections are unimportant, just that their votes are highly unlikely to affect those outcomes.

More generally, there is a strong temptation for people to spend their time becoming informed on small issues on which their choice is decisive (such as what color tie, or dress, to wear to work), while remaining uninformed on much more important matters on which they have almost no influence (such as the effect of government policy on the business cycle—which can have a much greater effect on their well being).

Economists refer to this as rational voter apathy and ignorance.

Unfortunately, the evidence of rational apathy and ignorance is easily found.

We are all familiar with low voter turnouts

• In 2000 presidential election the voter turnout was 51%.
• By no means the lowest turnout.
• Only 49% in 1996.
• As far back as 1924 it was only 48.9%

The turnout is far lower on average in local elections.

And we have all heard examples of how poorly informed people are on the candidates and the issues.

For example
A 1992 study found that while 86 percent of a random sample of likely voters knew that president bush's family dog was named Millie, but only 5 percent knew that he had proposed cuts in the capital gains tax.

The most commonly known fact about the views of the first George Bush during the 1992 election was that he hated broccoli.

More people were able to identify Judge Wapner (host of the television series, The People's Court) than knew who Chief Justices Burger or Rehnquist were.

There are many more examples one can find to illustrate the public’s ignorance of politics, rational or otherwise.

But I don’t want to make too much of these examples.

Spending too much time talking about voter apathy and ignorance, and calling it rational, makes it easy for people to jump to the conclusion that economists are arguing that people shouldn’t bother to become informed and vote. Not true.

For example, economists have argued on the basis of cost/benefits considerations that as cars become safer, people drive more carelessly, and have done empirical work to support this argument.

But no economist I know has ever argued that motorists should drive carelessly. And economists certainly don’t argue that people should litter because it can be personally beneficial.

There are things we feel people should do, or shouldn’t do, without regard to the personal costs and benefits.

The economist Anthony Downs, who first developed the theory of rational apathy and ignorance in his book An Economic Theory of Democracy, stated at the end of that book, “our insistence on the importance of self-interest in government action precludes neither individual charity and selflessness. . ….true altruism is an important force in society and must not be underestimated.”

And fortunately most of us do behave in socially responsible ways

And this explains why there are limits to the strict cost and benefit approach to voting. In fact, if we really want to understand voting behavior we cannot rely entirely on rational ignorance and apathy.

The fact is, people have a sense of responsibility for concerns that go beyond their narrow self-interest.

We are all motivated by some combination of the narrow and the noble, and our theories can give us a distorted view of the world if they completely ignore the better angels of our nature.

As we shall see, most people get a real sense of satisfaction from voting in ways that they believe promote the public interest.

The rational ignorance, rational apathy theory of voting leaves some interesting questions unanswered. And I would like to discuss them briefly

1. the important question is not why so few people vote, but why so many vote? The strict benefit and cost approach predicts that almost no one would vote.
2. why are people more likely to vote in national elections than in local elections? After all, your vote is more likely to be decisive in a local election.
3. also, why do people commonly vote against their private interests if they are only motivated by those interests.

The fact is, people do vote for programs, or for politicians who support programs, that will make them financially worse off if they are enacted.

For example, many young people vote for social security even though they don’t believe they will benefit from it. Or they often vote against programs that would help them and that others would pay for.

So let’ consider

1. Why do so many people vote?
2. Why is voter turnout higher in national than local elections?
3. Why do people sometimes vote against their own interests?

Economics provided interesting answers to these questions by going beyond the theory of rational ignorance and apathy, and considering the concept of expressive voting:

Expressive voting is based on

1. The previously discussed fact that no one’s vote is likely to be decisive, and
2. The desire most people have to express themselves in support of things they approve of, and in opposition of things they disapprove of.

The argument is that people vote largely for expressive reasons, not because they think their vote will decide the outcome of the election.

Voting is much like sending a get-well card, or cheering for the home team, or booing the visiting team.

It feels good to express support for a sick friend, or for the home team. We don’t do these things because we think our get-well card will cure our friends illness or our cheer will cause the home team to win, although they may help a tiny bit—and are almost surely more likely to help than your vote is to effect the election.

We send the card and cheer at the game primarily because of the expressive satisfaction it provides.

It is not surprising that teachers, and others with good educations, are more likely to vote than those with little education. Greater education increases our interest in political issues and our desires to express ourselves on those issues.

So expressive voting not only explains why a lot of people vote, it also explains the higher voter turnout of the more educated.

It also explains why people are more likely to vote in national elections than in local elections even though their vote is more likely to be decisive in local elections. National issues and candidates are publicized to a much greater decree than most local issues and candidates.

So most people realize more expressive satisfaction voting in national than local elections.

For example, most people have stronger feeling about the president than they do about the local mayor.

Expressive voting also explains why people often vote against their personal interests.

The fact is that voting against your interests cost you almost nothing.

I don’t want to be misunderstood here.

I’m not arguing that the cost has to be low for people to sacrificing for the general good.

But as an economist I also believe that people are more likely to support what they believe serves the public good when the cost is low.

There is a downward sloping demand curve for doing the right thing.

And voting makes contributing to a person’s vision of the public good about as cheap as it gets.

Again, the reasoning is rooted in the almost zero probability that any one’s vote will be decisive.

If I vote for a program that, if it passes, will cost me $1,000,
Voting for it doesn’t cost me anything close to $1,000.

For example, if I was 100% sure that my vote would not determine the outcome of the election, then voting for the program would cost me nothing.

The program might pass, and I will have to pay $1,000, but it would pass no matter how I voted. So if I receive some satisfaction from voting for the program, why give up that satisfaction by voting again it, since I'll end up paying the same no matter how I vote.

Of course, you don’t know for sure that your vote will not be decisive.It may be, and you will have to pay the $1,000 because you voted for the program.

But if the probability that your vote will be decisive is say,
1/100,000 (unreasonably high), then the expected cost of voting for the program is only 1 penny (1/100,000 x $1,000 = $.01).

So if the feeling of virtue that comes from expressing yourself in favor of some noble sounding government program is worth more than a penny to you, voting for that program is a bargain.

You will vote for it even if you consider only your private benefits and costs.

Contrast the cost of voting for the program with the cost of writing a $1,000 check for the program.

This has the same cost as casting a decisive vote for the program—$1,000.

Is expressive voting desirable? Some may think so since it motivates people to be more generous by lowering the cost of generosity.

But there is a potential problem here that I want to talk about, and which gets to my explanation of the importance of economic education. “How a Little Economic Education Can Go a Long Way.” As the subtitle of my talk says.

The potential problem with expressive voting is that it increases our vulnerability to exploitation by organized interest groups.

It is well known that relatively small groups organized around a narrow common interest (such a subsidies or protections for their businesses) have a big political advantage over large groups with diverse interests, such as consumers and taxpayers.

Small groups are easier to organize for political lobbying, and have a strong motivation to do so. Each member can realize a significant benefit from successful lobbying.

On the other hand, large diverse groups are difficult to organize and they have no overriding common interest to motivate political activity.

So when there is a special interest proposal being considered that benefits a few at the expense of the many, politicians can expect to hear loud and often from the few, and little or nothing from the many.

But it takes more than just special-interest influence to move legislation through the political process, particularly legislation harmful to the public.

Public opinion is important to the success of legislation, with it almost impossible to enact a policy in the face of strong public hostility, no matter how much an organized interest favors it.

Interest groups must convince a significant segment of the voting public that their special-interest proposals are either directly beneficial to them, or promote social justice and the public interest. Unfortunately, organized interests often have little trouble convincing voters of the social merit of special-interest proposals (even though they destroy wealth and lack social merit), and getting them to feel good about voting for those proposals.

1st, many uniformed voters are gullible to noble-sounding, but misleading claims about the social virtue of policies.

2nd, when voters accept the noble claims for policies, the temptations of expressive voting will lead them to vote for those policies with little concern about their costs.

In this way, special-interest groups are able to enlist voters as political allies in support of policies that harm the public interest.

For example, industry groups that want import restrictions convince voters that those restrictions are needed for the noble goal of protecting American jobs.

Agricultural interests that want price supports and subsidies convince voters that they are needed for the noble goal of saving the family farm.

Voters sympathize with the noble goal of helping the poor and are easily convinced that poor people benefit from minimum wages and rent controls.

There are few things as noble as protecting our environment, but voters have been convinced that command and control policies that protect organized interest at the expense of the environment are the most effective way to reduce pollution.

Expressive voting results in these and other policies (or the politicians who support them) receiving electoral majorities, even though very few people would vote for them if they were aware of their harmful effects to the general economy and to the very people they are suppose to help.

And this brings me to the importance of economic education, and how even a little economic education can have significant political consequences through voting behavior.

Economic education can create a healthy skepticism about the social value of government policies that are readily accepted as socially beneficial to those without an understanding of basic economics.

This can shift the feeling of virtue that so many receive from voting for noble sounding, but socially harmful, policies into a feeling of virtue from voting instead for more reliance on solving problems through the wealth-producing power of markets.

The mathematics of expressive voting implies that voting choices are very sensitive to changes in our economic understanding, and how that understanding affects how we feel about what is best, not for us, but for the country.

Reducing the expressive satisfaction of voting for government programs that will be captured by special interests, and increasing the expressive satisfaction of voting for market approaches by just a few cents can have a big effect on election outcomes.

Let me quickly point out here, that I'm not advocating economic education as a way of encouraging people to vote against all government programs and solutions to our problems.

Government has important functions to perform, functions that are essential if we are to benefit from a vibrant and productive market economy.

No sensible person would deny this. But neither would any sensible person deny that many government activities are counter productive, costing more than they are worth, and exploited by an organized few to grab benefits at the expense of the general public.

And this points to another tremendously important advantage of economic education. It gives people an analytical framework for judging which programs are socially beneficial and that they can feel good voting for, and which ones are socially harmful and they can feel good voting against.

We cannot change the mathematics of voting.

But as teachers we can use economic education to harness that mathematics to make voting a more potent force for good government and a productive economy.