The impact of the vote on the community at large makes up the other part. People take into account the interests of the whole as well as their personal interest. Civilization progresses in a political dimension through the ability of politicians to read the desires of the electorate. Their influence instead bears on the politicians, who look to opinion leaders for help in ascertaining the wishes of the electorate. The decline of a nation state or political unit is a sign of repeated failure of the political class to read the wishes of the electorate.
Emigration is a sure sign of relative political failure.
At the extreme, the electorate resorts to revolution, thereby adjusting the political framework and raising to power a new political class better able to read the desires of the electorate. Modern nation states have built into their political frameworks various safety valves that can bring about urgent corrections in the avoidance of violent revolution or war. Suppose in 1979 there had been an assassination of Ronald Reagan. The attempt on his life was made in 1981, but if he had been pulled out of the process in 1979, the electorate would have been denied the one man who best grasped the needs of the electorate in computing the direction of national destiny. There was no position to which we could aspire which would be higher.