Voting can be done as an act of altruism (in addition to other reasons), buying a small chance of very large impact, for which it can easily have a positive expected value.

I agree with this argument, but note that it only applies if you actually believe that the differences between the policies that Obama and Romney are likely to implement do amount to a very large overall utility differential (and that you can know beforehand in which direction it goes). I suspect that Konkvistador does not share this premise.

The paper assumes votes are accurately recorded, counted, and reported. Which is known to be false; error rates in vote counts are at least 0.1%, and likely closer to 1%. A perfectly honest close election is an election decided not by actual votes cast, but the random distribution of counting errors. And any election so close is going to be subjected to recounts that simply redistribute the counting errors.

Now, it is theoretically possible your vote might actually tip things in the final recount, right? Despite the fact that who actually won in a close election is unknown and unknowable, your vote is more likely to be accurately counted than not, so it might tip over the decision, right?

Except that's assuming perfect honesty in recording, counting, and reporting, which is ridiculous. What will determine who wins in a close election is whether the margin created by random counting errors is small enough that the people in the best position to commit fraud can tip it the way they prefer.

And, of course, we then ask -- did you actually have a good, reliable of idea how your candidate was going to do in office, and then on top of that how his choices were actually going to translate into effects? Really? So, back in November 2008, what did you predict the September 2012 unemployment rate would be, if Obama won? What did you predict the US budget deficit would be? Did you predict that the average number of deaths of US personnel in Afghanistan per month under Obama would be five times higher than it was under Bush? Did you predict the overthrow of the Libyan government by US air power? Let's be serious; Obama didn't have a very good idea of how his policies would translate into actual effects back on Election Day 2008.

Your vote for a position less powerful than President is more influential, sure, but its actual effect is reduced because the position is less powerful. There might be some point in voting on propositions and initiatives if your state has them, and maybe on very local elections if you've bothered to become informed on them and live in a small enough community.

For example, while it's true that an individual vote only has a small effect, consider the effect of say encouraging rationalists not to vote notice that this has an effect on more that one vote.

I always find it amusing how quickly people jump to knock off effects in these debates. If my actions and arguments have such effects surely those of other potential voters do as well. Doesn't this mean things add back to normality any my influence really is just the nano-slice it seems to be?

In my country, we have the right to complain about anything we want, regardless of voting.

When I vote, I get the moral right to complain about other peoples' votes, and therefore to complain about the actions of the government these votes elect.

That right is worth the 20 min I need to spend to go vote, even without any consideration of the consequences of voting collectively.

How remarkable, a 20 minute ritual can confer on me new moral rights, I feel like being a Catholic all over again! But let us now discuss how many angels can dance on that particular pin.

Do people who aren't allowed to vote allowed to complain? Like children, teenagers and convicts? Also illegal immigrants and foreigners who live legally in the country but don't have citizenship?

Do I still get to complain about judicial decisions that aren't influenced by votes? Do I get to complain about old laws? Do I have the moral right to complain if I'm wronged, say my human rights violated?

If the personal is the political as some claim, have I lost all right to moral judgement because I'm a non-voter? Us non-voters if you prick us do we not bleed? If you tickle us do we not laugh? If you poison us do we not die? And if you wrong us shall we not revenge?

Also I should remind you that unfortunately (since I want to get rid of all politics), deciding not to vote is a political act as well. By not voting I show I do not think this whole democracy thing is a legitimate regime, I will obey its laws for I am small and the state is big. I am the regime's subject of this there is no doubt, but I have no wish, and there is of yet no law, to force me to play in the mummer's farce of citizenship.

When I vote, I have registered approval of one faction of politicians and have arguably lost my right to complain about the policies they go ahead and enact. (If they lose, I should not complain either, and I should humbly submit to the outcome of the democratic process.)

Good thing the idea of "rights" is mostly incoherent anyway.

When I vote, I get the moral right to complain about other peoples' votes, and therefore to complain about the actions of the government these votes elect.

I see complaining as a basic human right. Saying that people who don't vote shouldn't complain is an effort to eliminate a major source of feedback about how a society is going.

Saying that people who don't vote shouldn't complain (or possibly shouldn't be listened to by voters) seems to me like a claim that was trumped up to get people to vote. Voting makes relatively little difference. How about "people who don't vote in primaries shouldn't complain"? People who don't research their votes shouldn't complain? People who don't take an active part in politics by researching and then trying to influence other people shouldn't complain?

The problem with democracy is rational ignorance and the problem of collective action - the famous example is the sugar subsidy in the United States. Using toy numbers, one might suggest that the average American pays $1 more per year for sugar because of those policies. By simple multiplication, that means the policy is worth ~ $300M to the sugar industry.

Why do situations like this persist?

1) I'd spend more organizing the group to end these policies than I'd ever save on sugar (the problem of collective action)

2) Even taking the time to learn about the problem is a waste for the average individual (rational ignorance).

Forcing people to vote doesn't solve these problems, it just forces people to make a decision when they would admit they don't have enough information to make the decision that truly reflects their preferences.

Never voting is probably the wrong answer because being predictably irrelevant to a decision is not the way to influence the decision in one's favor. But decision-making when decision-makers lack the resources to effectively consider the issues is not a very tractable problem. Consider the example of the local politicians who change their names (a) to famous names, or (b) to appear earlier on the list of names on the ballot.

The problem with non-compulsory voting is it means that only the people who care strongly enough about the elections to get off the internet and drive to a polling booth are the ones who have their voices heard. This means that you lose a lot of moderate, sane, rational voters but keep all of the rabid nutjobs.

OTOH, you lose a lot of ignorant, clueless, or just lazy voters who have no basis for forming an opinion, and the ones who have the voices heard are the ones who cared enough to study the issues, even if their study was one-sided.

Push the problem a step back, and my thought here is compulsory political study rather than compulsory voting.

Surely you should be considering voting as a massive prisoner's dilemma: when you decide whether or not to vote you aren't just deciding for yourself, you're also deciding for anyone who thinks similarly to you. I'm not saying that your individual vote is going to make any noticeable difference, but the votes of every jaded rationalist in America on the other hand...

Remember you are likely to overestimate how much other people's decision process is similar to yours. I must have missed the software update when we implemented TDT on voter brains.

Of course, that doesn't constitute a conclusive argument, but consider what voting actually costs you. At worst, it's an hour of your time, and since you're probably spending half an hour on a forum on the internet telling people (amongst other things) how you're not going to vote, you can't reasonably say that sacrificing that hour of you life is too big a utility loss.

I try not to be hypocrite as much as possible. If I say voting is a bad idea, I hope most people who know me will agree this is a good indication that I don't vote either. Also unlike with voting, I actually think I could perhaps change peoples minds, I view it as sanity training. More sane people is a good thing since they have positive externalities.

If I had my way, voting would be compulsory in every democracy on the planet.

Please no!

I'm not saying that democracy is the best way of doing things, but if some countries ARE democracies then we should at least try to do mitigate the negative effects of the system.

Democracies in say Western Europe actually only work as well as they do because of the competent civil service and respect people have for experts, which de facto radically limits how much politicians can do, especially since the process needed for them to fire any of these people is usually not worth the effort if it is possible at all. How would your relationship with your boss change if he couldn't fire you?

Argentina have the best system - voting is compulsory once you're over 18, but you can refuse to vote if you formally express this intention to the authorities at least 48 hours before the election. That way, nobody is forced to vote if they don't want to, but it takes the same amount of effort to abstain as it does to vote, so you don't lose moderates to laziness.

That sounds ok.

If anyone has an argument against voting, I'd be interested to hear it.

• It is a ritual that contributes to belief. Why do you think Islam has obligatory praying several times a day?
• It is a waste of time. A small but obvious one. Like buying lottery tickets is a small but obvious waste of money.
• Large voter participation legitimize government action that in fact has very little to do with the political process.
• Voting is associated with democracy, democracy is a bad idea ask Aristotle.
• I don't need to argue with friends and family because I wouldn't vote for their candidate.

The problem is that essentially nobody thinks similar to you. In particular, there are only a few hundred LWers, who are geographically scattered, not politically unified, and who don't all even think similarly enough to agree that one should vote for the reasons you've given.

Compulsory voting has a downside, insofar as it requires poorly motivated voters, who will also know less, to vote.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57347634/poll-nearly-8-in-10-americans-believe-in-angels/

The vast majority of humans are wrong about many, MANY fundamental things. The fewer of them controlling outcomes the better. Compulsory voting only makes sense if you think the number of smart informed people who don't vote out of laziness outnumbers the number of idiots who don't vote out of laziness.

I'm not saying that your individual vote is going to make any noticeable difference, but the votes of every jaded rationalist in America on the other hand...

By voting, you will not make (or probably even encourage) every jaded rationalist in America to vote, so from a decision theoretical standpoint that observation is irrelevant. The instrumental value of voting is zero. There may be other values (signaling, pleasure, moral), but there is no instrumental value. You will not influence the election, so the expected value of any policy changes arising from just your vote is zero. Once you think of it strictly in terms of decision theory, the relevant variables should present themselves.

For those of us who don't care that much about signaling interest in government and don't think there's any particular moral duty to vote (I think there is frequently a moral duty to abstain), wasting an hour on an internet forum is a much better use of our time.

If I had my way, voting would be compulsory in every democracy on the planet.

I know it's normal in some countries, but I think this is an AWFUL policy. Why? Consider it in economic terms of negative and positive externalities. Say I'm a good voter who knows a thing or two about policy. When I vote, it very (very very very) marginally affects policy outcomes. When a bunch of good voters vote, policy outcomes become better.

Now turn it around. When a bad voter votes, it very (very very very) marginally affects policy outcomes. When a bunch of bad voters vote, policy outcomes become worse.

This is wonderfully analogous to pollution. By leaving a fan on all day, you only very marginally contribute to global warming. So, even if you're interested in stopping global warming for selfish reasons, there's nothing you can personally do to hinder it, so why bother? But there's no personal incentive for anybody to bother, so global warming happens. Meanwhile, global warming affects more people than just you, and bad voting does the same. When you indulge your idiotic ideas of good policy, it doesn't have any effect on the election, so it doesn't have any effect on you. But since everybody's doing it, policy gets dumb.

So the question becomes, when comparing voluntary and mandatory voting, which types of voters are more likely to abstain in a voluntary system?

I don't see the need to hunt for the stats right now, but if you don't believe me, I'll happily scan some relevant sections from Scott Althaus' Collective Preferences in Democratic Politics and Carpini and Keeter's What Americans Know About Politics and Why It Matter. The basic story is this: In America, people who are educated are way more likely to vote than those who aren't, and uneducated people have demonstrably and outrageously boneheaded beliefs about policy. Forcing them to vote is like mandating bad policy.

(Hence what I said earlier about a moral duty to abstain. Like there might be a moral duty to reduce your carbon consumption, even though it will have no effect on the environment, there might be a moral duty to abstain from voting if you're an ignoramus.)

One doesn't have to oppose democracy to advise folks not to vote. Jason Brennan makes a lot of pro-democracy, pro-civic engagement arguments along these lines. Here's the abstract to his paper "Polluting the polls"

Just because one has the right to vote does not mean just any vote is right. Citizens should not vote badly.  This duty to avoid voting badly is grounded in a general duty not to engage in collectively harmful activities when the personal cost of restraint is low.  Good governance is a public good. Bad governance is a public bad.  We should not be contributing to public bads when the benefit to ourselves is low.  Many democratic theorists agree that we shouldn’t vote badly, but that’s because they think we should vote well.  This demands too much of citizens.  

I think that if you really buy into the one box arguments presented elsewhere on this site, you should be voting.

This meme just will not seem to die.

No, not all the assumptions made in the thought experiments designed to show TDT cooperating and CDT defecting (and TDT benefiting from the difference) are present in the specific case of a human deciding whether to vote in a national election. The other agents are not behaving remotely like TDT or UDT agents and a TDT agent would defect and benefit from doing so. And then the next election would come around and they would do the same thing.

TDT doesn't mean act like a care bear!

(conditional on the assumption that you have significant policy preferences; if you don’t care either way, then there is nothing analogous to the million dollars)

(Expanding on this out of interest, and assuming a case where there are enough TDTish agents in your population for it to actually be sane to consider cooperating.)

The assumption required is not quite whether you have strong preferences but what the preferences of all the TDTish agents are (or are estimated to be). If there is a group of agents implementing decision theories like TDT who are all willing to cooperate if that's what it takes to make the other people in that group cooperate and it happens that half of them are Greens and half are Blues then they do cooperate by staying home!

I think that if you really buy into the one box arguments presented elsewhere on this site, you should be voting. (conditional on the assumption that you have significant policy preferences; if you don’t care either way, then there is nothing analogous to the million dollars)

Not at all, if Omega is offering me 1$ for one-boxing I see no need to play its game since I can get more utility doing other things. Voting probably doesn't get any particular voter more than a few dollars of expected utility in government action. The delusions associated with voting probably give them far more but again like with the lottery I find that a waste since they can be gained in other ways (some of which do the world some good).

This seems like grasping at straws.

Consider how many people you affect when you go to the store to buy breakfast. You practically effect nearly everyone else on the planet by a very small value. I'd argue voting is not more than two or so orders of magnitude above that.

But let us for the sake of argument say it is larger than that, your basic problem is that every other voter affects people by the same value as well. No matter how you turn this you only get a nanoslice of power in steering where the country moves. There are clearly better things to do with your life than spending time thinking about which candidate to vote for or paying the price in gas for the 30 minute drive to the voting booth.

This is assuming to the first approximation politicians only care about the proportions of votes various candidates and parties get and not the number of people voting. Note that for some kinds of referendums this isn't true. But for most elections it seems to hold to the first approximation. Moving beyond that approximation, I bet that higher voter turn out makes the result of the elections seem more legitimate to the populace emboldening the government for decisive action.

If one desires small government the state having little legitimacy sounds like a good idea.

Thus, the expected number of people you'll affect is .

Not voting (especially if you tell others you didn't vote) also affects people. You are going to need to subtract this to get the net effects.