ECONOMIC THEORIES OF VOTERS’ TURNOUT

 Economic Theories of Voters’ Turnout

The recent developments experienced in the modern world have ensured that significant numbers of adult citizens are eligible to participate in the voting process in various election exercises. The individual vote in any voting excise is eligible with regard to the consideration of the outcome; however, the depiction of community vote has remarkable effect in determining the outcome of the voting exercise. The attributes of development has ensured that the voting system is adequately conducted to ensure democratic choice of leadership. Certainly the attribute of choosing leaders in any environment is one of the leading perspectives that the citizens must carry out through the consideration of voting. Voting system is also known as the electoral system and it is highlighted as the system in which voters make an ideal choice given the options of various personalities in an election or referendum. The aspect of conducting the voting exercise is enforced by the consideration of ensuring valid voting and effective counting of the votes and finally the consideration of the final voting result (Pedersen & Pesendorfer, 1996). Normally, the common voting systems depict the majority rule where the wills of the majority voters are reflected in there choice of the leaders. In the wake of the descriptions above, the voting theory is said to encompass th4 attributes of voting that depict the voting and final results and its basis of the representation of the majority rule. Over the period, the aspect of the majority rule has been characterized by rising criticism because sometimes it does not represent the actual feelings of the voters and this necessity leads to the establishment of the uncertainties when the aspects of voting are considered. Normally majority rule occurs when the voting exercise is meant to highlight results when there are only two options; however, the presence of the various options is one consideration that derails the establishment of the majority rule. Analysts have stated that the usage of a simple choice does not allow voters to express the ordering of the extent of their feelings (Ferejohn & Fiorina, 1974). Voting exercise can be a challenge because the voting systems may give different results in the cases that are characterized by absence of majority preference.

In the wake of the above realities, a sample case of paradox is enhanced during the initiation of the decision to participate in the voting exercise and these voting decisions re best illustrated through he consideration of the paradox. Analytical findings has demonstrated that there are various paradox that have significant regard for the elections and these includes the attributes of voting paradox, paradox of indeterminacy and the paradox of ignorance.

The voting paradox-the aspect of the voting paradox considers the attributes that are crucial in determining why an individual voter would rational care to spend time and resources in acquiring knowledge about voting. This paradox continues to ascertain the compelling factors that will enable the individual to attend the voting exercise on the voting day and finally take part in the voting exercise.

The paradox of indeterminacy- this paradox is crucial because it seeks to establish the source of the rationality of the voters by establishing why the rational voter care about the voting the results and care about who they vote for.

The paradox of ignorance-this paradox analyses the degree of the costs of information and why the rational vote must be ignorant about the relevant aspects of their decisions making. Decision making by rational voters is faced with uncertainties amounting to ignorance because the voters neglect the aspect of considering crucial information necessary for the attribute of decision making in the voting process.

Over the period, the aspect of voting has been the crucial consideration of the huge magnitude of people because voting and political representations are crucial attributes of economic development and this enhances performance of the national government. On the verge of these developments, ideal analysis and emphasis has been placed on the consideration of the voting exercise because it concerns the aspects of development and it considers the various types of behaviors that are initiated during the voting exercise (Myerson, 1999). The establishments of voting theories have been of immense benefit because thy help the global nations in the attributes of understanding the complexities that sounds the voting exercise. The necessity and reason for developing these attributes are highly enhanced by the emphasis that have been vested upon the consideration of the voting process and impacts that the voting exercise has on the development of the economy. In the wake of these developments, the analysis of the voting exercise and decisions to vote are better understood through the consideration of economic voter turnout theories.

Voter turnout

Over the period, voting has been expressed as an expensive exercise because of the previsions it contains. The voters that takes part in the voting exercise have confirmed that voting is an exercise that s costly because it involves the use of both finance and time resources. The initial cost is the cost of getting to the physical poling station and this also includes the cost of taking sometime off duty to exercise the voting rights. The analysis conducted on the analytical reports has stated the decision to vote can be influenced by party differentials where the individuals have an attachment with the party leaders and the party manifesto (Palfrey & Rosenthal, 1985). In this regard, the benefits are weighed by the infinitesimal probability that one vote will have the effect of determining the outcome of the voting exercise and therefore, such the attributes of small votes casted makes the turn out irrational. In the aspect of establishing this incentive, Downs bases his argument on the information that the voters normally turn out to vote because of the attributes of democracy because a zero turnout does not reflect any instances of democracy and this enhance significant influence on the outcome of the voting exercise (Ferejohn & Fiorina, 1974). Even though this school of thought has been adopted by Downs in his illustrations, this depiction is faced with the existence of the outcome that the probability of one person influencing the outcome of the voting exercise is almost zero. This depiction discredits the practice of democracy through the voting exercise thereby stating that the attributes of voting should be highly influenced by pluralism of the voters. In this realization, the attributes of voting should be geared towards enhancing the usage of logics because this will enable the users to adopt the attribute of making ideal incentive to govern decision making.

The basis of voting

Generally, the conduction of voting is faced by the consideration of many options and this exercise involves choosing the ideal option from the given range of individuals. The logic of choosing the ideal voting initiative is influenced by the depiction of the expected utility that the will be derived form the incumbent. Even though the aim of voting is to establish the government, the consideration of the voters is also crucial and the establishment of different voting views has the capacity of influencing the formation of the voting logics. Over the period, various voting exercises have been influenced by the personal attributes of voting logics that seeks to establish the social benefits that will be derived from the practice of voting. For example, voting party A and party B have different repercussions and the decision made by the voter will be based on the derivation that they will attain from the parties and this reflects the attributes of rationality in the voting system. This basis of voting is sometimes faced with adverse effects and decisions which assert that the logics are as a result of future events which are uncertain. Therefore, the voter may vote based on future expectation and on the other hand they may vote based on the consideration of the looks of raw utility differential where they consider the changing trends of the parties. In this attribute, the voters may chose to forgive one of the parties for their failures to deliver the utilities for the society (Fiorina, 1976). Another important factor that is constituted in the voter logics is the attribute of utility. Here the both parties say A and B are analyzed based on their depiction of utilities and the usage of various utilities. This consideration analyzes the application of utilities by both parties and further assesses the necessities to changes that either party has initiated or this consideration leads to the establishment of a critical decision. Upon conduction of the analysis, the voter s has the purpose of making a decision of whether to vote for a party or abstain form the conduction of the voting exercise. Finally, the system of multiparty is extremely crucial because it exhibits a unique voting system where the voters vote for the party rather than the favorite to ensure that the disliked favorite players lose in the election. The considerations of the economic voter theories are depicted and highlighted as follows.

Rational theory

The theory of rationality in the aspects of voting is largely borrowed from the considerations of the microeconomics that states that consumers are generally rational in their decision because they seek to maximize their personal gains. In the aspects of microeconomics, rational theory is also denoted as the rational action theory or the choice theory because of the nature of its depiction. Rationality is the aspect of minding personal gains more than the community and it leads to the changes in the aspects of decision making.  Over the period, the aspect of rationality has been adopted and incorporated into other disciplines like political science, philosophy and sociology (Feddersen & Pesendorfer, 1996). The adoption of this incentive is due to the aspect that it enhances increased understanding of the human behavior and provisions. Rationality has been adopted as the ideal theory to represent that factor sin the representation of economic and political incentives because it enhances the establishment of the basic incentives in the making of decisions concerning the attribute of voting. The basic idea of rational theory demonstrates that the different aspects of patterns and behaviors of the communities and societies reflect the choices made the individuals in their quest to maximize their returns and personal benefits. One aspect that characterizes maximization of benefits in the attribute of minimizing operation costs. Therefore, the long term behavior of the society is ideally reflected by the choices initiated by the citizens during the conduction of the election.

In consideration of the theory of rational choices and the paradox of not voting, it is reveled that the consideration of the probability that an individual vote might change the election outcome is extremely small. The rationality aspect of the theory is displayed by the determination of the voters to change the outcome of the elections and this will ensure that the voters endure all sorts of irregularities like conflicts, rains other atrocities that may reduce the attributes of voting. During the conduction of primaries, research findings have stated that the voters channel their votes towards the viability of the candidates. Finally, the establishment of the voting patterns has been ascertained to similar and consistent with the strategic voting models that predicts the outcome of the elections. This incentive is confirmed by the provision that in a multiparty democracy where there is significant number of voter contesting to win the elections, the voting exercise normally ends up being a contest between two opponents.

The decision-theoretic approach

This consideration is largely dependent on the consideration of two parties in a multiparty system facing the aspects of election in the ballot. This theory and model analyzes the case of a single voter with two candidates and the vote must make the decision of voting of forfeiting the chance to vote. One of the crucial factors for consideration in this attribute is the provision of the certainty considering if the cases of a single vote would change the outcome of the elections and this consideration leads to the consideration of choosing the best side to cast the vote. Voting is an exercise characterized by immense calculation and atrocities and the voters must employ ideal usage of polices and ideal issues in making the decisions to vote for the individuals they perceive to be crucial for their rational needs (Fiorina, 1976). According to this theory, the voters must understand that voting is characterized by a series of benefits and costs and the individual and rational voters must understand the prevailing factors y weighing on the costs and benefits. In reality, the voter will vote for the candidates if the benefits are less than the costs of voting. 

The influence game theory

The attributes of this theory have proven crucial because it states that voting exercise can be ascertained through the use of mathematical formulas and calculations. The consideration of the game theory considers the introduction of ordinal ranking that provides the ratings of the voting criteria and explained that strategic voting is unavoidable in certain in circumstances. In this attribute, there are determining factors in any voting systems and these factors must e realized through the aspect of common voting (Myerson, 1999). The basis of this theory further states the plurality voting commonly lead to two party system. In such scenario, the single winner of the votes must use the aspects and attributes of ordinal preference ranking. Finally, the aspect of voting can be a challenging event for the undertakers of the voting exercise because they may fail to undergo the preliminaries of the voting exercise. However, it is extremely crucial to establish that rationality of the voters and the attributes the voting decision is crucial in prediction of the outcome. The voters should demonstrate understanding of the policies initiated by all the parties before considering the attribute of casting their votes.

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