I almost didn’t vote today. As the founder of a website that helps people focus on doing what matters, casting a vote in Illinois (where the election won’t be close and my vote won’t matter) is arguably hypocritical. Had I spent an hour this morning working on The Point instead of voting, it would have done infinitely more good (some vs. none = infinite).

But when I started compiling my argument against voting for the purpose of this post, I realized:

• My argument applies to me and exactly no one else.
• I still think everyone else should vote – indeed, I need them to so I can shirk.
• There is nothing I actually want to change about the way voting is marketed as a civic duty – even though it’s effectively the most meaningless way for an individual to participate in public life and no one deserves a sense of satisfaction for doing it, it still must be done.
• I don’t actually have anything worth saying about not voting.

So that was that – post abandoned, I would abstain from voting in silence.

But after reading an article by Freakonomics author Steven Levitt about the irrationality of voting, I was convinced, ironically, that I should vote.

Levitt explains that many economists consider voting pointless to the point of being a social stigma.

Why would an economist be embarrassed to be seen at the voting booth? Because voting exacts a cost – in time, effort, lost productivity – with no discernible payoff except perhaps some vague sense of having done your “civic duty.” As the economist Patricia Funk wrote in a recent paper, “A rational individual should abstain from voting.”

But rational economics is based on the assumption that all parties act rationally. If Funk is using rationality to declare that I shouldn’t vote, then it follows no one else votes either. If no one votes, however, my vote will make a difference, so I should vote. But since everyone is rational, they just all came to that conclusion, so once again everyone is voting… and I shouldn’t vote. But everyone else realized that too… and on and on.

Voting is a particularly interesting collective action puzzle – because it’s designed to be anonymous and uncoordinated, everyone has the exact same cost/benefit (setting aside issues of difficulty getting to the polls, self-satisfaction, etc.). In other words, the rational answer to the question of whether to vote should be the same for everyone in the country.

I think the problem with Funk’s statement stems from a poor definition of what constitutes rational decision making (I’m way out of my league here, but this is a blog so you knew that already). Let me offer two ways of defining a “rational” decision:

• Decisions that produce the greatest personal payoff are in my best interest (Funk Rationality)
• It is in my best interest to behave in a way that I need everyone else to behave (Golden Rule Rationality)

I’m not articulating the essence of the distinction perfectly, so I’ll try and illustrate it through the example of voting. If the decision whether to vote is made without considering how other people should behave who are faced with that exact same decision, you get caught in the cycle described above. But if I approach the question of “should I vote?” from the perspective that every single person has to make the exact same decision and thus the conclusion needs to be the same, the answer is, rationally, “yes.” Just because economists understand the free rider problem doesn’t give them permission to perpetuate it.

So that’s a long-winded way of saying something you already know – vote, even though it doesn’t matter.

-Filed in Ideas, The Point