She estimates that she has a 1 in 1,000,000 chance of casting the deciding vote, for an expected value of $0.02 from improved policy.

But suppose she is a member of a cheese-lover's club with 10,000 members nationwide. If the club votes as a bloc, the chance that the bloc's votes are decisive is 1 in 100, and the expected gain per club member is $200, enough to motivate the effort and time of voting.

So how does the club handle the "free rider" problem? Well, one way would be to organize car pools to bring groups of 4 voters to the polls. People who wish to evade their voting responsibilities must do so in front of 3 witnesses. And ostracism from the cheese lovers club is also a negative utility of at least $200 in magnitude.

In effect, this is how big-city political machines used to work for the Democratic party in the days before the auto workers had built enough autos to move everyone to the suburbs.