VOTING AS A RATIONAL CHOICE
WHY AND HOW PEOPLE VOTE TO IMPROVE
THE WELL-BEING OF OTHERS
Aaron Edlin, Andrew Gelman, and Noah Kaplan
ABSTRACTFor voters with ‘social’ preferences, the expected utility of voting isapproximately independent of the size of the electorate, suggesting thatrational voter turnouts can be substantial even in large elections. Less
important elections are predicted to have lower turnout, but a feedback
mechanism keeps turnout at a reasonable level under a wide range ofconditions. The main contributions of this paper are: (1) to show how, for
an individual with both selfish and social preferences, the social preferences will dominate and make it rational for a typical person to vote evenin large elections; (2) to show that rational socially motivated voting has
a feedback mechanism that stabilizes turnout at reasonable levels (e.g.,
50% of the electorate); (3) to link the rational social-utility model ofvoter turnout with survey findings on socially motivated vote choice.
KEY WORDS • elections • turnout • sociotropic voting • rational choice

1. Introduction
We demonstrate that voting is rational even in large elections if individuals have ‘social’ preferences and are concerned about social welfare. Ina large election, the probability that a vote is decisive is small, but thesocial benefits at stake in the election are large, and so the expected utility benefit of voting to an individual with social preferences can be significant. What is perhaps surprising is that the expected value of thesocial benefit does not approach zero or even diminish as the number ofvoters grows large.
The key way in which we go beyond a circular argument (of the form
‘people vote because it gives them positive utility’) is that we consider
Rationality and Society Copyright © 2007 Sage Publications. Vol. 19(3): 293–314.
http://rss.sagepub.com DOI: 10.1177/1043463107077384

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RATIONALITY AND SOCIETY 19(2)the perceived social benefit not simply as a psychological feature of theindividual but as a utility that is proportional to the probability of being
pivotal (itself endogenous) and to the number of persons affected by theelection under consideration. We believe that this calculation is roughly
consistent with the way citizens perceive voting and participation – notsimply as a (possibly) enjoyable act or as a discrete duty, but as a potential contribution to the general good. The larger the jurisdiction in which
the election applies, the larger the potential effect of the election outcome on the general welfare.
Agents in rational-choice models are typically assumed to have ‘selfish’ preferences. We argue that separating the rationality assumption fromthe selfishness assumption reveals that (a) the act of voting can be rational, and (b) a rational voter will decide which candidate or option to votefor based on the voter’s judgment of the expected social consequences ofthe election outcome as distinct from the direct consequences to that voter.
We show this for a simple model in which voters decide whether to vote,and how to vote, based on maximizing an expected utility with both selfish and social terms.
More important than explaining that it is rational for people to vote (ifthey have social preferences) is our observation that, for the very reasons
it is rational to vote in a large election, even a mostly selfish person who
votes should as a descriptive matter vote for what he or she perceives tobe the common good, or at least the good of a large affinity group, but notfor direct individual gain. Thus our model explains not just why but also
how rational people vote. This voting theory suggests that models of thevote choices of rational individuals should work with social rather thanselfish utility functions. Survey findings on voters’ motivations are, in fact,broadly consistent with rational models of voting (see Section 4.3). The
predictions regarding how people vote may at times be similar for selfish
and sociotropic models, of course, to the extent that individuals bias theirviews of what will help others by what will help themselves.
It is well known that voting in large elections cannot be explained interms of the selfish benefits of voting to the individual: the probability
that a vote is decisive is too low for voting to be ‘worth it’ in an expectedutility sense (see Downs 1957; Riker and Ordeshook 1968; Ferejohn
and Fiorina 1974; Meehl 1977; Aldrich 1993; Green and Shapiro 1994;
Gelman, King, and Boscardin 1998). Intrinsic theories of voting understand voting as an experience that provides psychological benefits, butsuch explanations do not help us predict variations in voter turnout, suchas high turnout in close elections and presidential elections. Nor do they
provide guidance in understanding which candidates a voter will prefer.

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We claim that one reason a voter would support George Bush for US
President in 2000, for example, was because the voter thought that Bushwould be better for the country as a whole, even if most Americans did not
see that. The voter is not updating based upon the opinions of the othervoters in order to judge the quality or social utility of Bush. Instead, we
model the voter’s subjective social benefits as proportional to the numberof citizens, and independent of the way other citizens vote.1
As the probability of being pivotal shrinks, people will be less apt
to vote (though there is a feedback here, because as fewer people vote,the chance of being pivotal increases; see Section 2.2). As the stakes andimportance of the election increase (say, because candidates are farther
apart on the issues or because it is a presidential election), more will vote.
Likewise, as the cost of voting declines, more people, and importantly
more people who are poorly informed, will find it rational to vote.
Finally, our model predicts that, holding constant these other factors,
election size will not substantially influence turnout rates,2 except amongvery small elections where selfish concerns may play a role.
We present our model in Section 2 of this paper and review broadly
supporting evidence in Sections 3 and 4. We conclude in Section 5 witha discussion of the implications of our results for vote choices as well as
voter turnout, and with a discussion of various possible empirical tests
and implications of our model.
2. A Social-Benefit Model of Rational Voter Turnout
2.1. If One Cares about Others, It Can Be Rational to Vote
We shall develop the following argument: suppose n persons vote in anelection that affects a jurisdiction with a population of N; then the benefit of having the preferred candidate win the election is proportional to
N. This is multiplied by a probability of decisiveness that is proportional
to 1/n, and thus the expected utility of voting is proportional to N/n,which is approximately independent of the size of the electorate.3
In the basic rational-choice model of voting and political participation(see Blais 2000 for an overview and many references), the relative utility of voting, for a particular eligible voter, is:∆U = pB − c,(1)where p is the probability that a single vote will be decisive, B is the relative benefit associated with your desired candidate winning the election,

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RATIONALITY AND SOCIETY 19(2)and c is the net cost of voting – that is, the costs, minus the direct benefitof voting (whether or not your candidate wins).4
Acting in a manner consistent with this sort of cost-benefit analysis is
the standard definition of rationality as utility maximization. Traditionally,
B is understood to refer to direct benefits to the voter. This is the assumption of self-interest. We keep the rationality but break the link to pure selfinterest by expanding the benefit term in (1) to include individual benefits
Bself and social benefits Bsoc for an affected population of size N:
B = Bself + α NBsoc.

(2)Here, Bsoc is the average benefit per person if the preferred candidate
wins, and α is a discounting factor to reflect that benefits to others areless important than benefits to self; thus, we would expect α < 1 for mostpeople. The factor Bsoc represents the benefit to others as perceived by
the person making the decision whether to vote; it is not an averaging of
the actual utilities or preferences of the N persons in the population
affected by the election.5
Definition. A voter is selfish if α = 0 and social if α > 0 in (2).
Assumption. The probability of a pivotal vote is inversely proportional
to the number of voters, n. (This assumption is reasonable because
the closeness of elections, in percentage terms, does not depend
strongly on the number of voters, n. Hence the probability that anindividual vote is decisive – which essentially is the probability that
an election is exactly tied – is of order 1/n. See the Appendix forfurther discussion of this point.)
We write the probability that a vote is decisive as:
p = K/n,(3)

where K represents the competitiveness of the election. As discussed in
the Appendix, K = 10 is a reasonable value for close elections, withsmaller values in elections that are not expected to be close.
Proposition 1. For a selfish voter, the expected benefits from being
pivotal and swinging the election vanish as n grows. As a result, voting
in large elections only makes sense for selfish voters if they enjoy theact of voting itself (that is, if c < 0 in (1)).

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For example, consider a two-candidate election with n voters. Suppose
the election is anticipated to be close, and each candidate is expected toget between 47 and 53% of the vote (and thus the vote differential is
expected to be in the range ± 6%). The probability that a single vote isdecisive is then about 1/(0.12n).6 So, for a selfish voter, the expected utility gain from potentially swinging the outcome of the election is about
Bself /(0.12n), which even for a moderately large election (e.g., n = 1
million) is minor: even if the outcome of the election is worth $10,000 toa particular voter, the expected utility gain is less than 10 cents. This
point has been widely recognized (see the references at the beginning of
this paper). Given that the act of voting has a nonzero cost, voter turnout
is thus usually attributed to some mix of irrationality, confusion, andthe direct gratifications of voting (including the performance of a civicduty); that is, a negative net cost c of the act of voting. However, thesemotivations do not explain observed variations in voter turnout between
elections. In addition, voting is an act with large-scale consequences
beyond any immediate satisfaction it gives to the voter. At the very least,
many voters seem to consider their voting actions with more seriousness
than other low-cost consumption decisions.
Proposition 2. For a social voter, the expected benefits of being pivotal
and swinging the election have a nonzero asymptote proportional toα Bsoc, which does not vanish as n increases.
For example, consider the same hypothetical election as above, inwhich the n voters represent a jurisdiction with population N. Further
suppose that 1/3 of the population are voters; that is, n/N = 1/3. If you,as a potential voter, think that the net benefit to your fellow citizens ofcandidate A winning the election is the equivalent of Bsoc = $10 per citizen, then you are effectively giving them a total of $10N/(0.12n) =$10N/(0.12(N/3) = $250 in expected value by voting. Voting in such a
circumstance is a perfectly reasonable thing to do, regardless of population size: a small effort yields a substantial expected social gain, equivalent in some ways to giving $250 to a national charity. For example, if
your discounting factor for benefits to others is α = 0.1, then your net
utility gain from voting is positive as long as your cost of voting c is lessthan $25. In many elections with issues such as national security, global
climate change, and nuclear weapons proliferation, a rational citizen
could think that the superiority of his or her candidate might deliver an
expected value per citizen far in excess of $10, and thus an expected
return on voting far in excess of $250.

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RATIONALITY AND SOCIETY 19(2)By separating rationality and selfish preferences – two assumptions thathave usually been linked, but that have no logical connection – we see thatvoting in large populations is perfectly rational. Our model also leads to adifferent prediction of the choices people make when they vote. As thesize of the population increases, the expected social contribution to utility
comes to dominate the direct individual utility, which shrinks to 0. As aresult, as population size grows, an individual may change his or her voteand begin to vote for the social good instead of the individual good. Hencea shareholder in a privately held company with four shareholders mightvote for his own interest. However, in a national election, if a person
makes a rational decision to vote, he or she will vote for policies that heor she perceives to be in others’ interests. Of course most people have anatural bias to think that what interests them will interest others, so thetwo motivations may be easily confused in practice.7
2.2. Feedback Mechanism Keeps Voter Turnout Relatively Stable
Our social-benefit model of voter motivation has a feedback mechanismthat explains why turnout settles to a stable level at a sizeable fractionof the electorate. If turnout becomes very low, then n decreases, and thus
the factor N/n increases, and it becomes more reasonable to vote.8 We
explore the feedback in detail using our model.
Substituting (3) into equation (1) yields:!U =K
B − c.
n

It is useful to express this in terms of b = B/N, the expected benefit, peraffected person in the population, of changing the election outcome:b = αBsoc +1
Bself .
N

(4)

Finally, we define nelig as the number of eligible voters and T as the proportional voter turnout, so that n = neligT, so that:
!U =

KN
KN
b−c =
b − c,
nnelig T(5)

to express the utility of voting in terms of population size and voter turnout.

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If N is large (as in most elections of interest), then from (4) we see thatb ≈ αBsoc and does not depend on N. In general, b should be positive, but
c can be either positive or negative. The ratio c/b can be considered the net
cost of voting, for a particular voter, per unit gain in the population.
In the notation of (1), it is rational for a person to vote if ∆U > 0;from (5):!U > 0 if

c
KN
<
.
b
nelig T(6)

We can assume a distribution of c/b among the population of eligible
voters and then use the model to explore how turnout should vary among
elections. The model has a stable equilibrium turnout rate, Tequilib, which
we explore by working with expression (6) which expresses the conditions under which it is rational to vote.
For less important elections, b will decrease, and thus c/b increases,
and so fewer people will want to vote. But as the turnout T decreases, it
becomes rational for some people on the margin to vote. The equilibrium point of turnout is defined where the probability of voting in (6) is
consistent with the turnout rate T in that expression; thus:
"
!
c
N
1
,
Tequilib = Pr<K
(7)bnelig Tequilib
where the probability calculation averages over the distribution of c/bamong the voters, and the factor K (defined by (3)) and the fraction of eligible voters nelig /N are considered as constant for any particular election.
In an election anticipated to be close, it is reasonable to set K = 10 (see the
Appendix). Given these factors and a distribution for c/b, we can numerically solve for the equilibrium turnout rate Tequilib.
To get a sense of the dependence of turnout on the importance of theelection, we consider a specific two-parameter family of probability distributions for c/b that allows for an asymmetrical distribution of net utilities for voting that can be both positive and negative.9 We shall examine
how turnout (as solved for in (7)) depends on the two parameters of this
distribution:• The noncentrality parameter δ determines the skew in the distribution. In the context of voting, it can be mapped to the proportion of
the population for which net direct cost (the term c in (5)) is positive
and the proportion for which c is negative (these are the people for

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RATIONALITY AND SOCIETY 19(3)whom the direct benefits of voting exceed its costs, irrespective of whowins). We set δ to be positive (meaning that the net costs of voting are
positive for more than half the population) and consider a range of values. If δ = 1, then Pr(c > 0) = 0.16, which means that 60% of the eligible voters would vote, even in an election with no importance. We
consider values of δ from 0.5 (in which case 31% of the people would
vote under any circumstances) to 1.5 (6.7% would always vote).
• The scale parameter s represents the average importance of the election, as perceived by the potential voters. We consider how theturnout varies as a function of s with the other parameters in themodel held constant.
Figure 1 shows the results for this model. Each curve in the figure
represents the possible elections in a hypothetical population, with thedifferent elections varying in importance (as measured by the scale parameter s of the noncentral Cauchy distribution) but otherwise held undersimilar circumstances; that is, with a fixed noncentrality parameter (0.5,
1.0, or 1.5), K fixed at 10 (corresponding to an election that is anticipated to be fairly close), and with nelig /N, the fraction of the population
1.0

Voter turnout

0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0.0
.001

.01
.1
Importance of election (logarithmic scale)1

Figure 1. Stable Level of Turnout, Tequilib, as a Function of the Relative
Importance s of the Election, for Different Values of δ in the Distributionof Cost/Benefit Ratios (see Section 2.2).
Note: From top to bottom, the three curves correspond to δ = 0.5, 1.0, 1.5. Because of the
feedback mechanism (when turnout decreases, the probability of a decisive voteincreases), the equilibrium turnout remains in a plausible range (between 20% and 80%),even as the importance of the election varies by two orders of magnitude.

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who are eligible voters, set to 1/3. All these curves are characterized bya fundamental stability: the importance of the election can change byover an order of magnitude, with turnout staying in a reasonable range.
This shows how the feedback mechanism works, under this model, tokeep turnout at a reasonable level.
3. Supporting Evidence from Political Participation
Our potentially controversial claim is not the Benthamite idea of defining
social utility as proportional to the number of people benefiting but rather
the assumption that individual voters might be motivated by such a social
utility. Though a rigorous empirical test of our claim is beyond the scopeof the current project, we do provide some suggestive evidence.
Our supporting evidence is of two types. In Section 3, we consider
information on the rate at which people engage in political activities –such as voting and responding to surveys – that have a small chance ofaffecting large-scale policies. Section 4 addresses how people vote, withevidence that vote choices are based on judgments of social goods, notselfish benefits.
3.1. Small Contributions to National Campaigns
In addition to voting, millions of people contribute small amounts ofmoney to national political campaigns (see Verba, Schlozman, and Brady
1995). Volunteer work could be motivated by being enjoyable in itself.
Large contributions, or contributions to local elections, could conceivably
be justified as providing access or the opportunity to directly influence
policy. But small-dollar contributions to national elections, like voting,can be better motivated by the possibility of large social benefit than bydirect instrumental benefit to the voter.10 Such civically motivated behavior is of course perfectly consistent with both small and large anonymous
contributions to charity.
3.2. Declining Response Rates in Opinion Polls
Responding to opinion polls can be thought of as another form of political participation in that policymakers and candidates use poll results asfactors in making decisions. (For example, consider the role of opinion
polls and perceived opinion changes in issues including abortion, gun
control, health care, the death penalty, and Bill Clinton’s impeachment.)

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RATIONALITY AND SOCIETY 19(2)In the 1950s, when mass opinion polling was rare, we would argue that
it was more rational to respond to a survey than to vote in an election: forexample, as one of 1000 respondents to a Gallup poll, there was a realchance that your response could noticeably affect the poll numbers (e.g.,changing a poll result from 49% to 50%, or changing a result from not statistically significant to significant). Nowadays, polls are so common thata telephone poll was done recently to estimate how often individuals are
surveyed (the answer was about once per year). It is thus unlikely that a
response to a single survey will have much impact, and so it is perhaps
no surprise that response rates have declined dramatically in recent
decades (Steeh 1981; Smith 1995; Groves and Couper 1998; De Leeuw
and De Heer 2002). There are of course other reasons (e.g., irritation attelemarketers) for the increasing nonresponse; our point here is that thispattern is consistent with our model in which political participation ismotivated by expected utility of the social outcome.
3.3. Turnout Is Higher, Not Lower, in Large Elections
Voter turnout tends to be higher in large elections – in the United States,
highest for presidential elections, then congressional and state, thenfinally local elections tend to have the lowest turnout. Theories of votingthat focus on instrumental benefits (e.g., the theory that says that voters
are instrumental utility-maximizers who happen to overestimate small
probabilities) would tend to predict higher turnouts in small elections. In
contrast, the social-benefit theory predicts a slight increase in turnout fornational elections, if the issues at stake are perceived as more important,on a per-voter level, than in local elections.
More specifically, one might expect local elections to be more relevant
for individual benefits and national elections to have a greater effect onsocial benefits. But the 1/N factor in the second term of (4) ensures that theindividual-benefit term will be close to zero except in the most local elections. The gradual decline of the (1/N)Bself term in (4) in fact would predicta very slight decline in turnout as population increases, at least for small
jurisdictions, as was in fact found by Darvish and Rosenberg (1988) for aset of Israeli municipal elections. However, this decline would be expected
only if all other factors in the election were held constant. Since national
elections typically address more important issues, it makes sense under ourmodel for them to have higher turnout.
3.4. Turnout Is Higher in Close Elections
Turnout tends to be higher in close elections, or, to be more precise, in
elections that are anticipated to be close, and there is some evidence toDownloaded from http://rss.sagepub.com at CALIFORNIA DIGITAL LIBRARY on September 17, 2007
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suggest that the probability of voting increases for potential voters who
perceive an election to be close. These effects have been much studied(e.g., Campbell et al. 1960; Barzel and Silberberg 1973; Cox and Munger1989) and have been taken as support for the decision-theoretic motivation for voting. However, it has been pointed out from both proponents
and opponents of the rational-choice model (e.g., Aldrich 1993; Greenand Shapiro 1994) that, for large elections, the probability of a single votebeing decisive is minuscule even if the election is anticipated to be close.
And if voting is motivated by personal satisfaction, it is not clear why voting should give more satisfaction or discharge more civic duty in closeelections.
In contrast, the increased turnout from closer elections makes perfectsense in the social-benefit theory, where even small probabilities of decisiveness are important when multiplied by the social benefit, which is proportional to N. The natural way to empirically distinguish our social
preference, Bsoc, from civic duty is that Bsoc is multiplied by Pr (election istied), and civic duty is not. Of course, one could allow civic duty to behigher in close elections but then the theory becomes tautological. A key
contribution of this paper is to demonstrate that rational voting is not a
tautological theory if Bsoc is allowed.

4. Supporting Evidence from Political Vote Choices
Our theory predicts not only that rational people will vote but that arational person who votes – even a mostly selfish rational person – will
decide whom to vote for based on social considerations. In this section
we discuss some observations about vote choices that are consistent
with rational and socially motivated voting. This evidence is importantbecause it recognizes voting as a serious act of citizenship rather thansimply a fulfillment of a civic duty.
4.1. Strategic Voting
A strong piece of evidence that vote choices are perceived as consequential (and thus amenable to decision-analytic treatment) is that voters sometimes act strategically (see, for example, Johnston and Pattie
1991; Abramson et al. 1992; Alvarez and Nagler 2000). For example, inthree-candidate races for seats in the House of Commons in the United
Kingdom, it is common for supporters of the third candidate to vote forone of the leaders, and political parties account for these voting patterns
in their strategies. Strategic voting behavior is consistent with our model
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RATIONALITY AND SOCIETY 19(2)because it suggests that at least some voters are acting based on the
anticipated consequences if their vote is decisive. So it’s not merely theact of voting that motivates turnout, it’s also the potential for affecting
the outcome.
4.2. Voting Based on Issues without Direct Instrumental
Benefits to the Voter
Another piece of evidence that voting is motivated by social benefit is that,in surveys, many voters say their vote choices are strongly influenced by
non-economic issues that do not affect them directly (for example, if you
oppose abortion, then you will not be directly affected by abortion laws).
It is true that some contentious issues (for example, social security benefits) do involve instrumental benefits to voters, but what is important forour model is that these are not the only issues of importance to voters.
Voting is a way for citizens to get their opinions heard and respected.
For that matter, it seems quite plausible that if Americans could vote on
the Academy Awards (as they do for baseball’s All-Star game), turnout
would be high despite the lack of personal benefits from influencing
such an election.
4.3. Surveys of Voter Motivations
Strong evidence for our model comes from surveys of potential voters.
Voters’ preferences on national candidates and issues are strongly correlated with views on what would be desirable for the country, and more
weakly correlated with opinions about personal gain. Hence in politicalscience, the standard view (to which we subscribe) is that voters aresocially motivated in their preferences (see Kinder and Kiewiet 1979,
1981; Weatherford 1983; Funk and Garcia-Monet 1997). Funk (2000)
extends the idea of social-benefit motivations to public opinion. Thesefindings address who you might vote for, not whether you turn out tovote – but if your vote choice is determined by social-benefit concerns,
then it is reasonable for any decision-theoretic model of voting toinclude anticipated social benefit in the utility function.
For a recent example, in the 2001 British Election Study (University ofEssex 2002), only 25% of respondents thought of political activity as agood way to get ‘benefits for me and my family’, whereas 66% thought ita good way to obtain ‘benefits for groups that people care about like pensioners and the disabled’.

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EDLIN ET AL.: VOTING AS A RATIONAL CHOICE305

5. Discussion
5.1. Social Motivations and Rational Voting
Voters think in terms of group and national benefits. We know thisfrom survey responses and, as we have shown in this paper, with such
motivations it makes sense for many people to vote, as contributions tocollective entities. In surveys, voters say they are motivated by national
conditions, and their turnout is consistent with this assumption, so perhaps
we should believe them. Conversely, rational and purely selfish people
should not vote.
Survey results on socially motivated voting are actually consistent
with rational political behavior, although they are sometimes seen as ananomaly.11 For example, Kramer (1983) characterizes poll findings ofsociotropic voting as a statistical artifact that is ‘perfectly compatible with
the null hypothesis of self-interested, pocketbook voting’. As we haveshown in this paper (see also Meehl 1977; Margolis 1981; and Jankowski
2002), however, voting and vote choice (including related actions such as
the decision to gather information in order to make an informed vote) arerational in large elections only to the extent that voters are not selfish.
Thus, there is no good rational reason to consider ‘self-interested, pocketbook voting’ as a default or null hypothesis. After all, sociotropic voting
is also perfectly consistent with the null hypothesis of rational voting,social preferences, and sincere survey respondents.
Thus far, we have primarily emphasized our theory as explaining the‘mystery’ that people vote. However, it also has implications for votechoices. Why you vote and how you vote are closely connected. If you
are voting because of the possibility that you will decide the election andbenefit others, then you will vote for the policy that you think will leadto the largest average benefit. There is no reason to vote for a policy that
has idiosyncratic benefits to you because the individual-benefit term inyour utility is essentially irrelevant for large electorates. This observation explains why the rhetoric of politics tends to be phrased as benefits
to society generally or to large deserving groups, rather than naked
appeals to self-interest. No doubt many people are biased to think thatwhat benefits them will benefit others, but we predict that most people
will try to vote to benefit society at large or some large affinity groupthat they are passionate about. Our contention therefore runs counter tomuch of the political economy work of the past few decades. Except invery small elections, a rational person who votes will choose the candidate or party with the best perceived social benefits to the population.

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RATIONALITY AND SOCIETY 19(2)5.2. Psychological Explanations for Voting
Our model of voting for anticipated social benefits is consistent with what
we know about voter preferences and turnout. However, other theories
could work just as well. Following Aldrich (1993), we believe that therational model is complementary with a psychological understanding ofvoters.
In psychological explanations of voter turnout, most of the electorate
is motivated to vote by some mix of personal appeals and encouragement by the media. When a particular election becomes particularly‘salient’ to you (because of publicity, and possibly a connection to anissue of personal interest), you are more likely to vote. Interest in elections rises as the election approaches in the same way that the publicgets excited about the World Series, the Academy Awards, and so forth.
Turnout is higher in presidential elections because they receive the mostpublicity; similarly for close elections, where the act of voting receives
more positive pre-election publicity. Voting is a way of involving oneself in the political process, which is desirable, especially if the election
seems important, is getting a lot of publicity, and is being talked about.
This story is consistent with survey findings on motivations for politicalparticipation (Schlozman, Verba, and Brady 1995; Verba, Schlozman,
and Brady 1995) but focuses on the differences between elections rather
than between voters or between modes of participation.
The other side of the psychological-political explanation is thatturnout is affected by political advertising and other partisan and bipartisan efforts at persuasion (Gosnell 1927; Gerber and Green 2000). In
close elections and important elections, it makes sense for candidates
and interest groups to put more effort into persuading voters, which will
increase the perceived salience of the election and thus increase the psychological motivation to vote. Aldrich (1993) makes this point to illustrate how political parties and interest groups can raise the psychologicalstakes in close elections, which happen to be those in which the probability of a decisive vote is highest.
From the perspective of the rational model based on perceived social
benefits, we recognize that all human actions, including those that are
rational, need some psychological motivation, and it makes perfect sensethat a beneficial action will feel pleasant also; higher perceived saliencecorresponds to greater social benefit from voting. Conversely, the psychological explanation does not stand alone – voter turnout (unlike Academy
Award voting) has direct political effects, and it is reasonable and appropriate to study the benefits from voting, even if from a psychologicalDownloaded from http://rss.sagepub.com at CALIFORNIA DIGITAL LIBRARY on September 17, 2007
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perspective they are perceived only indirectly. Politically, it is also important to understand the factors that influence participation, since politicalactors are continually trying to manipulate them.
It may also be possible to learn about voter motivations using experimental studies. In two laboratory experiments on college students,
Fowler (2004a,b) has found that voters are more likely than nonvotersto behave altruistically (as is consistent with the social-benefit utility
model) and to display delayed-gratification behavior (as is consistent withthe fact that the costs of voting are immediate whereas the benefits
are delayed). These experimental findings linking turnout to altruism,
patience, and party identification have the potential to unify psychologicaland political explanations of participation.
5.3. Generalizations of the Model
Like all formal models of human actions, ours is a drastic oversimplification. Our key point is not that the curves in Figure 1, for example,
exactly fit turnout behavior in specific US elections, but that the model isconsistent with such behavior. Now that the model includes the socialbenefit term, it has the potential to be expanded in various ways alreadysuggested in the political science literature. For example, Uhlaner (1989)
suggests that voters consider themselves as members of large groups, andFowler (2005a) examines evidence that an individual’s decision to votecan have a ‘cascading’ effect that motivates others nearby in the social
network also to vote. In Converse’s famous article noting that relatively
few in the public are what he calls ‘ideologues’, he emphasizes that many
people do think in terms of ‘group benefits’. Recent papers extending theidea of group motivation include Leighley (1996) and Mutz and Mondak(1997).
The social-benefit model (applied now to groups rather than all persons in the population) then explains why voter turnout remains stableeven when the number of voters within each group becomes large, as innational elections. Aldrich (1993) discusses a variety of interactions
between rational voting behavior and political strategists, and these interactions become clearer when individuals’ preferences are allowed toinclude social benefits proportional to population size. Indeed, as a firststep, future research should begin to map the relationships betweensocial preferences and individual concerns. Finally, a consideration ofsocial as well as instrumental benefits can allow models to address awider variety of contentious political issues as factors in the turnout decision (and also in the vote choice decision, as discussed in Section 5.1).

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RATIONALITY AND SOCIETY 19(2)5.4. Empirical Tests and Implications
We hope that our model inspires researchers to do empirical tests of its
implications and estimates of its parameters. There are many falsifiable
implications. In principle, of course, voter turnout might go quickly tozero as the electorate grows; we know this is not so. A prediction worth
studying is that those who give a lot to charity, given their income, and sohave high values of α (see (2)) will be more likely to vote (as is suggestedby the experimental work of Fowler (2004a)). Another implication is that
voters who feel certain of which candidate is better should turn out at
higher rates. A third implication is that turnout should rise when more isat stake. Fourth, one might expect citizens in the smallest US states to be
more apt to vote in presidential elections (as they have a disproportionate
electoral college vote and there is a higher probability of an individual’svote being decisive, on average; see Gelman, King, and Boscardin 1998)
and in senatorial elections, though other factors could mitigate against
this. Fifth, a more subtle prediction is that the impact on a Californian’s
probability of voting in a national election will be roughly similar if a key
issue of concern to the voter is one that affects Californians with a stakeof eight hundred dollars per person or one that affects all US residents
with a stake of one hundred dollars per citizen. This last comparison ismore of a specification test: if the California issue has more salience, thisis less a rejection of our basic idea than a suggestion that California voters have two different α’s – a high one for benefits to Californians and alower one for benefits to other US citizens. Finally, if one could isolate avoter’s perception of the direct personal consequences from his or her perception of the social good, one might test which dominates in votechoices; the difficulty here is the likely causal correlation between the
two. Other implications abound, and we think this a fertile area forresearch.

APPENDIX

Why the Probability of a Decisive Vote is of Order 1/n
If n individuals vote in an election, then the probability of a vote being
decisive is roughly proportional to 1/n (see Good and Mayer 1975;
Chamberlain and Rothchild 1981). This result is derived based on the factthat elections are unpredictable and is supported by many empirical studies. Let f(d) be the predictive or forecast uncertainty distribution of thevote differential d (the difference in the vote proportions received by the
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two leading candidates). If n is not tiny, f(d) can be written, in practice, asa continuous distribution (e.g., a normal distribution with mean 0.04 andstandard deviation 0.03). The probability of a decisive vote is then half theprobability that a single vote can make or break an exact tie, or f(0)/n.12
For example, if a Democrat is running against a Republican, and thedifference between the two candidates’ vote shares is expected to be in
the range ±10%, then the probability is about 1/(0.2n) = 5/n that a single added vote could create or break a tie.13 The exact probability ofdecisiveness depends on the election and one’s knowledge about it, buteven if an election is expected ahead of time to be close it is hard to
imagine a forecast vote differential more precise than ±2%, in whichcase the probability of a decisive vote is still at most 1/(0.04n) = 25/n.
In practice, we see 10/n as a reasonable approximate probability of decisiveness in close elections, with lower probabilities for elections not
anticipated to be close. Gelman, King, and Boscardin (1998), Mulligan
and Hunter (2002), and Gelman, Katz, and Bafumi (2004) estimate
these probabilities in more detail for presidential, congressional, andother elections.
Some game-theoretic models have been proposed that suggest instrumental benefits for voter turnout (e.g., Feddersen and Pesendorfer
1996), but these models also imply that large elections will be extremely
close, and so they are not appropriate for real elections where the margin of victory varies by several percentage points from year to year.
Under a coin-flipping model of voting, the probability of decisiveness is—
proportional to 1/√ n but this model once again implies elections that aremuch closer than actually occur (see Mulligan and Hunter 2002;
Gelman, Katz, and Bafumi 2004).

Acknowledgments
This project was done collaboratively and the authors are listed alphabetically. We thank Madeline Burgess, David H. Krantz, Francis Tuerlinckx,
Jeffrey Zwiebel, Charles Cameron, Gerry Mackie, and several reviewers
for helpful comments.

NOTES
1. A failure to update reflects that the voter feels strongly enough about which candidate
is best for the country that his or her mind will not be changed simply because themajority of voters disagree. In this framework, the two groups of voters in an election
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RATIONALITY AND SOCIETY 19(2)do not represent competing interests but rather competing perspectives about what isbest for the country.
2. This is different from some game-theoretic calculations assuming purely selfish utilities that predict positive turnout that would be below 1% in a large election (seeLedyard 1984; Green and Shapiro 1994; Feddersen and Pesendorfer 1996 for discussions of such models).
3. A crucial part of our analysis is the recognition that p is of order 1/n (see the Appendix
for discussion and references on this issue). For example, in his review of rationalchoice models of voting, Dowding (2005) refers to models of social utilities – such as
considered here – as the ‘B-term solution’, but dismisses such models based on a mistaken belief that the probability of a decisive vote is as low as 10−90. In fact, 10−7 or 10−8
are more reasonable values for US presidential elections (Gelman, King, and Boscardin
1998) with much higher probabilities for many congressional races (Mulligan andHunter 2002). Models for the probability of tied elections can get complicated (seeGelman, Katz, and Tuerlinckx 2002) but the extremely low estimates cited by Dowding
seem implausible, given that there have been several very close presidential elections
in recent decades, as well as over 500 congressional elections in the past century thatwere decided by less than 1,000 votes. The probability of a decisive vote is low but isclearly distinct from zero, if multiplied by a benefit term that is proportional to the sizeof the electorate.
4. This last term is often written in two parts, separating the direct costs C and direct benefits D, but we shall only need to work with the difference or net cost, c = C − D.
5. This has similarities with the ‘dual-utility function’ literature in economics. See Coate
and Conlin (2005), Harsanyi (1955, 1969), Margolis (1981), and Feddersen and
Sandroni (2002). This tradition tends to focus on possible equilibria within a gametheoretic framework (and the associated comparative statics). In contrast, we embed
our individual and social benefits within a decision-theoretic framework. This facilitates a probabilistic treatment which provides unique insights. Our model is also similar to that of Jankowski (2002); we go further by explicitly including in the model thenumber of voters n and the population size N, which allows us to demonstrate the stability of turnout under the model, as we describe in Section 2.2.
6. This assumes that the probability distribution for the vote differential is approximately
uniform in the range of uncertainty. Using a different distributional form would change
the coefficient but not the proportionality to 1/n.
7. For example, Bafumi (2005) finds that voters’ perceptions of economic conditions havebeen increasingly tied to their political partisanship.
8. This feedback also occurs with the instrumental-benefit model, but there the expected utility of voting is so low that voter turnout will stabilize at less than 1% in large elections(Ledyard 1984). Bendor, Diermeier, and Ting (2003) and Fowler (2005b) also present feedback models for voter turnout but they differ from ours in relying on ‘satisficing’ rather thanutility maximization. In their models, people may choose to vote even knowing that theprobability of a decisive vote is zero; in contrast, our feedback mechanism works because,
as turnout declines, the probability of a vote being decisive increases, causing the expected
benefit of voting to increase.
9. We use the noncentral Cauchy distribution (that is, the noncentral t with 1 degree of
freedom), which is appropriate for a ratio in which the numerator can be positive or
negative (Johnson and Kotz 1970). The noncentral Cauchy is defined as a normal distribution with mean δ and standard deviation 1, divided by the square root of a scaledχ21 distribution with scale parameter s.

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10. Similarly, Gerry Mackie (2007) notes that the secret ballot limits the expressive valueof voting.
11. Some research in political science and public opinion has identified rationality withcivic-mindedness; for example, Key (1966) wrote of a ‘rational’ electorate concernedwith ‘central and relevant questions of public policy, of governmental performance, andof executive personality’. However, the literature on voter turnout has tended to associate rationality with selfishness.
12. The assumption here is that an exact tie vote will be decided by a coin flip. More realistically, if an election is possibly subject to recounts – so that an exact tie in the original vote is not a necessary or sufficient condition for a decisive vote – this result isstill valid and can be obtained by integrating over the range of votes for which a
recount is possible (see the appendix of Gelman, Katz, and Bafumi 2004).
13. See note 5 above.

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AARON EDLIN is a professor of economics and law at the Universityof California at Berkeley. He specializes in antitrust economics andlaw, and served as a senior economist in the President’s Council of
Economic Advisers.
ADDRESS: Department of Economics and School of Law, Universityof California, Berkeley, USA [email: aedlin@econ.columbia.edu].
ANDREW GELMAN is a professor of statistics and political scienceat Columbia University and is the author of the books Bayesian Data
Analysis, Teaching Statistics: A Bag of Tricks, and Data Analysis Using
Regression and Multilevel/Hierarchical Models.
ADDRESS: Department of Statistics and Department of Political Science,
Columbia University, New York, USA [email: gelman@stat.columbia.edu,
www.stat.columbia.edu/~gelman/].

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RATIONALITY AND SOCIETY 19(2)NOAH KAPLAN is an assistant professor of political science at the
University of Houston. His research focuses on voting, public opinion,and political campaigning.
ADDRESS: Department of Political Science, University of Houston,
Texas, USA [email: nkaplan@uh.edu].

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