Expressive voting is the voting where people express themselves in support of things they approve of, and in opposition of what they disapprove of and make statements about themselves and what they belong to.
- Voting is much like sending a get-well card, or cheering for the home team, or booing the visiting team.
- We send the card and cheer primarily because of the expressive satisfaction it provides to us.
If hundreds of thousands or millions vote on the same election, how you vote simply does not matter, so you can use it to feel good about yourself and a developer self-identity of this caring person. Voting becomes rather like cheering at a football match – the more noise the better but how loud you cheer as an individual doesn’t matter that much so you can cheer from whether you like.
The trouble is in expressive voting theory, voters know that feel-good policies are ineffective. Expressive voters do not necessarily embrace dubious or absurd beliefs about the world. The expressive voting is not a product of ignorance, it’s a product of the fact that your vote is one among so many and will not change the result of the election.
Expressive voting not only explains why a lot of people vote, it also explains the higher voter turnout of the more educated. It also explains why people are more likely to vote in national elections than in local elections even though their vote is more likely to be decisive in local elections.
Expressive voting also explains why people often vote against their personal interests. The fact is that voting against your interests cost you almost nothing when there are countless others voting too. Voting against your interest seems to have some hair-shirt benefit.
That said, expressive voting is like any other good in demand, demand for a expressive voting declines with as the cost of it goes up. There is less expressive voting when elections are close and as the cost of policies supported by the expressive voter go up.
Under the preferential voting system in Australia , instead of voting for the Australian Labor Party, a swinging voter can vote Green as a protest vote and then vote liberal
If there were no greens to vote for, some of the protest vote will stay with Labour because the voter cannot cop-out and split their vote while still feeling good about themselves but still be able to vote for their wallets and vote for right-wing party.
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
Recent Comments