I was going in hard on Twitter on “I Voted” stickers. I had too many Facebook friends snap pictures of their stickers and others who made comments about wanting their voting sticker. It was clear that they only voted in order to get the sticker. My aversion to the sticker is that it is a gimmick used to snare the marginal voter.
The type of person that will be snared by this social pressure is the type of person who will be a lower information voter. The entire political process vies for the marginal and low-information voter (I’d argue that there are few marginal high-information voters). If we must have a democracy, it would be nice if there were pressure towards a vertical democracy, not a horizontal one. I want my democracy deep and rich and full of people who want to participate. I don’t want it shallow and squeamish, moody, and stupid. There is also the possibility that bad voters drive out good voters. High information voters are more likely to avoid the process as their informed votes are diluted by uninformed votes.
At The Atlantic, Derek Thompson offers a defense of the sticker. I agree with Thompson regarding his rebuttal to those who argue that voting is not rational in economic terms:
At a pure cost-benefit level, it’s hard to justify taking hours out of your day to cast a single vote when the margin of victory can be counted in the tens of thousands. But today, millions of Americans will do just that. They will break out of this narrow boundary of economic rationalization, stand around in line for hours, and make democracy happen.
And yet, we vote. We vote because we think it’s important. We vote because we care about our country and our rights. We vote because it makes us feel good. It has nothing to do with economics.
The Swiss government failed to understand why people vote, Funk concluded. It’s social pressure, not economics, that motivates the marginal, or on-the-fence, voter. By creating the option to vote by mail, Switzerland got it backwards. They decreased the voting costs, but also removed the social pressure.
Thompson makes the same point I made on Twitter but has a completely different opinion about the ideal democracy:
People like being seen voting, as Funk concluded, but we also like being seen having voted. Theoretically something signalling to our community that we’ve already voted should create the same feelings of social cohesion, civic duty, and belonging. And that’s where the “I Voted” sticker comes in.
The “I Voted” sticker is a signal and an advertisement. It binds people together in solidarity and reminds others to join the group. Tens of millions of people will vote in every presidential election whether there are free stickers or free cookies. But beyond these intrinsically interested (and, possibly, more informed) voters are countless more citizens who need motivation to show up at the ballot box.
The “I Voted” sticker isn’t worth squat on the market. Its value — and its motivation — is purely social. And to the extent that it might actually get some marginal Americans to the polls, it’s also priceless.
Though I support voter ID measures (but think the government should provide free IDs to the electorate), I can’t quibble with the sentiment of those who oppose them. An ID limits access and diminishes suffrage. It hinders people who are already thinking about voting, from voting. But a voting sticker is a nudge rather than a non-barrier. We should support those who want to vote and try to prevent people from manipulating the system. And we should let voting occur organically. Individual groups of friends who discuss voting and such, but a coordinated effort to coerce or pressure votes is systemically flawed.
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I’d be interested to see a comparison of social atomization and decline in voter participation rates. As we become more removed from our fellow citizens and retreat from a healthy society into little enclaves, does that depress our participation in the foundational systems?
I was kind of wishing today that they had included an “I voted” sticker with my absentee ballot pack, so I wouldn’t look like a fool with my gold Romney pin as the day wears on.
Too bad I wasn’t thinking about this before. For $51 I could have gotten 12,000 stickers (link below) and handed them out to folks in the long lines here in Northern Virginia so that maybe a few Obama voters would figure they could just leave and say they waited in line long enough to vote.
http://www.electionstickers.com/index.php?page=shop.product_details&category_id=9&flypage=shop.flypage&product_id=17&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=3&vmcchk=1&Itemid=3
Funny, my precinct didn’t offer stickers. Guess the four old ladies running the entire operation had their hands full.
“People like being seen voting, as Funk concluded, but we also like being seen having voted. Theoretically something signalling to our community that we’ve already voted should create the same feelings of social cohesion, civic duty, and belonging. And that’s where the “I Voted” sticker comes in.”
Basically. the ticker signals social cohesion, thus making the government appear to be more legitimate. I guess complaining about this particular point is moot since the tatters of the constitution have been shat upon enough already, but the legitimacy of federal actions should (ideally) be determined by their constitutionality, and not by the opinions of the half-retarded ass-clowns known as “eligible voters.”
On a tangentially related note, Thompson’s argument requires the conclusion that protest votes are completely worthless, at least as long as ballots remain secret. If no one knows for whom you’ve voted, but does know that you did vote, then you are implicitly giving the democratic system your approval even though you claim that system doesn’t actually represent you, as evidenced by your so-called “protest” vote. The rational thing to do, if there is no candidate that represents you, is to not vote, since you will be demonstrating that the system has nothing to offer you.
* “ticker” should read “sticker”
I wouldn’t mind an “I voted” purple ink stain on my thumb, but the stickers are a bit ridiculous. Saw a four-year-old get one at my polling place today.
“We vote because it makes us feel good. It has nothing to do with economics.”
Voting should require deep immersion into the issues at play in the election, and yet few do that. Voting shouldn’t feel good if it’s indeed some kind of sacred duty. It should take work. Economics can in fact explain why people vote but fail to be informed. There’s little benefit to them personally by being clued in. Contrast this with a “vote” to buy a home.
OT, but eventually there will be no need for the secret ballot if the “big sort” continues. Everyone around you will vote the same way, and expressive voting is one big circle jerk of fellow-feeling anyway where folks just can’t wait to say the voted for their guy (or girl).
-Dain
What I hate are the people who say “I don’t care who you vote for, just vote!”
Bitch, yes you do care, and you know it.
I don’t vote because for every informed vote there are 100 ill-informed voters who vote based on 1 or 2 stupid fringe issues. They really should have some sort of test before allowing people to vote, but that would be raciss or elistist or whatever. We’re fucked either way. Scuse me while I go piss in the ocean.
“I don’t vote because for every informed vote there are 100 ill-informed voters who vote based on 1 or 2 stupid fringe issues.”
You’re giving them too much credit. They don’t vote on one or two stupid issues — they vote based on one or two stupid characteristics like what a candidate looks like. In short, they suck, and sorry if I’m throwing anyone’s mom under the bus here.
“An ID limits access and diminishes suffrage.”
arrggggg!!! The stupidity, it burnssssssssss.
I call bovine excrement!! The ONLY people who will be deterred by the requirement of an ID are exactly the bottom of the barrell, low information, marginal voters that are the crucial component of the “horizontal democracy”. Oh, and people who aren’t ALLOWED to vote anyway. You know, like non-citizens.
Sure, provide IDs for free, like that will really make much difference.
Heck, you do know that requiring people to vote within a certain time frame, and often at a certain location, “limits access and diminishes suffrage” too, right? We should let people vote whenever, and whereever they want. Folks in Connecticut should be allowed to vote for the Mayor of New York City, because whenever Bloomberg does something stupid, it affects everybody in the NYC metro area, especially the ones who live in “the burbs” and work in The City. So they should have a say also!!!!
I voted today for Barack Obama.
Felt just as good as the 1st time
the country is changing and will continire to change into a more colorful vibrant conuntyr
no more will white males ruin things
bikerdad,
just read the first line of your comment. i’m saying i can understand the case that the anti-ID side is making, that needing an idea is antithetical to the suffrage that they so value. i’m conceding that for the sake of argument to point out that nudging people with social pressure does not address suffrage.
Over – FUCK.
Sometimes they actually tell you why they vote. It’s not all minorities. I just read this thing an acquaintance of mine put up on Google+ yesterday. A friend of a friend. This is a reasonably intelligent guy. He spent the last decade or so working on his PhD in history, and now he works as a clerk in a dollar store. All along, the ENTIRE TIME he was working on this PhD, he made jokes about how useless it was and how unemployable he was going to be.
So he put up this whole long thing about how he was voting for Obama because Obama extended unemployment benefits and how he can borrow money thanks to the Credit Card Bill Of Rights, and all this other bullshit. Never once acknowledging that, if he hadn’t been such a dumbass in the first place, pursuing a degree he KNEW wasn’t going to make him any money, he never would have needed any of that stuff to begin with.
I think I’m going to be sick. Time for some drinkin’.
I still find rather quaint the American faith in the democractic ‘voting-system’, as if it matters.
You boys need to start thinking (and acting) outside the box.
CO + WA legalized weed. Far bigger impact than gay marriage as over 40% of Americans have smoked whereas 3.5% of Americans are gay/bi.
fogey,
there is no thinking outside the box. it’s done, man. the arc of history is lava rolling down the side of a mountain. the only thing to do now is to stop caring. one way to not fail is to not try, and that’s what much of america will do.
Chuck:
“there is no thinking outside the box. it’s done, man. the arc of history is lava rolling down the side of a mountain. the only thing to do now is to stop caring. one way to not fail is to not try, and that’s what much of america will do.”
So you’re all-in on Heartiste’s “poolside” bent?
What this means is we are becoming more European. There are pros and cons. The upside will be legal weed, gay marriage and affordable health for all. The downside will be non-hierarchical, egalitarian society that does not reward exceptional achievement because it will seem too male, too patriarchal, too white. A consequence of this will be an entrenched feeling of being comatose…like living in the UK or some other EU nation. But as I said, health care premiums will be within range. And you will be able to hit the bong without fear of being arrested.
prolong a life less worth living and get high legally. these initiatives seem to fit well together actually.
shmiggen – like Europe you will be broke. Broke America will not be comatose – probaby be pretty lively (not in a good way).
As elections become more like an episode of american idol the idea of a deep, rich voting procedure is quickly going in the wrong direction and fast.
Keep your chin up. This was entirely predictable.
As I’ve been saying for a while now, the problem isn’t necessarily the Jews, or the System. It’s easy to blame the faceless, abstract Other, which simply becomes an excuse for apathy.
No, the problem is other Whites. The problem is closer to home, within your own family, it’s your dad, or your sister, or your pastor, or your work colleagues, or your neighbour, or those annoying-but-fuckable hotties you see at the bar. Brother against father, brother against brother, man against woman. This is where we are. You see how messy the situation is.
Finally, perhaps, the Alt-Right-Nat-Manosphere will start acting like the non-conformists, dissidents, and insurgents that they are and stop pretending this is somehow still their country, or that they should continue working according to the old rules or within established patterns.
There is a lot of mischief to be made, and pussy to be had, from here on in.
I’ll be poolside.
Peace out.