{"id":4186,"date":"2019-02-27T11:51:25","date_gmt":"2019-02-27T18:51:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/econ\/?p=4186"},"modified":"2019-02-27T11:51:25","modified_gmt":"2019-02-27T18:51:25","slug":"the-paradox-of-voting-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/econ\/2019\/02\/27\/the-paradox-of-voting-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"The Paradox of Voting (part 1)"},"content":{"rendered":"

The choice to vote can be seen as a voluntary contribution mechanism. \u00a0This isn\u2019t a perfect perspective, but it hold the basic concept. The payoff would be amount of democracy or a leader that accurately depicts their representatives. \u00a0From this perspective our voting system could be considered very successful. Convincing a little less than half a nation to contribute to a VCM game is impressive. <\/span><\/p>\n

clarification: the nash equilibrium isn\u2019t zero. \u00a0As less and less people vote the more your vote matters, eventually surpassing the cost of going out and voting.<\/span><\/p>\n

Why do so many people vote? \u00a0In the recent election many of us were reminded about why people vote. \u00a0People vote to fight oppression, People vote against Trump, People vote for democracy, people vote because voting gives us a voice. \u00a0These are all valid reasons and motivations to vote. It is perfectly reasonable for someone’s payoff could outweigh the cost of voting. \u00a0Although, it is not reasonable for everybody. Unfortunately voting, as a VCM game, is not symmetric. I am going to repeat the costs and benefits of voting; the benefits are how loud your voice is (how much does your vote matter), the cost is how much it cost to vote. \u00a0That being said, not everyone\u2019s vote has the same weight in this country, and the reason isn\u2019t (just) the electoral college.<\/span><\/p>\n

Gerrymandering can be a difficult concept to grasp. \u00a0Let\u2019s say there is 10 democrats and 8 republicans. My goal is to split them into 3 equal groups. \u00a0Winning a group gives you 1 pt and whoever has the most points wins. Equal groups would be:<\/span><\/p>\n

Group 1: 6 Democrats<\/span><\/p>\n

Group 2: 6 Republicans <\/span><\/p>\n

Group 3: 4 Democrats, 2 Republicans <\/span><\/p>\n

Notice how democrats have the majority in two out of the three groups. \u00a0This leads to democrats winning. What if I want the distribution to favor republicans? \u00a0Remember there are 10 democrats and 8 Republicans.<\/span><\/p>\n

Group 1: \u00a04 Republicans, 2 Democrats<\/span><\/p>\n

Group 2: 4 Republican, 2 Democrats<\/span><\/p>\n

Group 3: 6 Democrats<\/span><\/p>\n

Now republicans have the majority in two out of the three groups. \u00a0Even though republicans don\u2019t have the general majority they would win the election. \u00a0In a nutshell, this is what gerrymandering is. Redistributing the parties de-valuing their voters, allowing you to win without the majority. \u00a0I\u2019ll get into how parties gerrymander, the asymmetric costs of voting and the paradox next week.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The choice to vote can be seen as a voluntary contribution mechanism. \u00a0This isn\u2019t a perfect perspective, but it hold the basic concept. The payoff would be amount of democracy or a leader that accurately depicts their representatives. \u00a0From this perspective our voting system could be considered very successful. Convincing a little less than half a nation to contribute to a VCM game is impressive. clarification: the nash equilibrium isn\u2019t zero. \u00a0As less and less people vote the more your vote matters, eventually surpassing the cost of going out and voting. Why do so many people vote? \u00a0In the recent Continue reading The Paradox of Voting (part 1)<\/span>→<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":581,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/econ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/econ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/econ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/econ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/581"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/econ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4186"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/econ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4186\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4187,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/econ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4186\/revisions\/4187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/econ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/econ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/econ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}