It's OK To Not Vote

Numerous nonpartisan groups (Facebook, my parents and peers, corporations like Starbucks) have been urging me to get out and vote how I want on Tuesday. There are two problems with this approach; for one thing, more and more voters are mailing in their ballots ahead of time - I voted two weeks ago. I also question the assumption that high voter turnout is desirable. My California ballot had about 20 distinct elections and propositions on it. Conservatively, I spent about six hours figuring out how I wanted to vote. If the marginal Election Day voter is going to vote in 19 out of 20 elections by closing their eyes and stabbing at the ballot, how is democracy better off? Voting in and of itself isn't great, but informed voting is. Especially when most of the propositions, like a high-speed train across California, look great on their face but have ugly particulars.

Furthermore, as any economist will tell you, choosing not to vote is a rational decision. There is a significant time cost (looking up your polling place, debating the measures, taking time off work etc). From an individual perspective, it only makes sense to cast a vote if your vote has a significant chance of being the decisive ballot, i.e. the race is within 500 or so votes. For more, see Bryan Caplan's recent book The Myth of the Rational Voter, or this NYT article by the authors of Freakonomics.

I am not trying to say that no one should vote, or that people who want to vote should not vote. But if you don't want to vote or don't know that much about the issues you shouldn't feel compelled to cast a vote anyway.