The Election Lottery
posted by Jason Mazzone
Voter turnout in the United States is among the lowest of all democracies. While pointy-headed professors have offered various proposals for increasing turnout at the polls–mandatory voting (as in countries like Australia), internet voting, easier registration, and a national holiday so voters don’t have to take time off work–an opthamologist in Arizona has come up with a proposal that could have have mass appeal.
Dr. Mark Osterloh is leading a ballot initiative that would make available a $1 million prize in each election in the state. The prize funds would come from unclaimed state lottery winnings. Upon casting a vote, the voter would have a chance at the loot.
My guess, having seen hordes of people line up for hours for powerball tickets, is that a chance at prize money would bring some people to the polls who would otherwise stay away–but that $1 million is probably too low to have much overall effect.
May 29, 2006 at 10:45 am
Posted in: Current Events
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Responses (4)
Simon - May 29, 2006 at 11:38 am
You have to ask, though: given the kind of people who would show up to vote because of such a scheme, when they would otherwise have stayed away, really the sort of participation we want to encourage? I just don’t accept that that it follows that higher turnout is “better democracy” per se. If only 25% of the population voted and yet every one of those people had carefully studied the issues before them, that would be a far better result, as I see it, to an election where 100% of the population voted but only 10% had really studied the issues and the other 90% were looking for a payout.
Omer Trajman - May 29, 2006 at 12:51 pm
I have not seen any coverage addressing the potential increase in fraud. One of the reasons the lottery works well (few instances of cheating) is because it is relatively cheap to increase your odds (however insignificantly) including buying multiple tickets and buying in to ticket pool. Encouraging multiple tickets sales helps create the lottery fever which you reference. Conversely, tying a cash prize to what is in principle a one voice one vote system (where it is illegal to increase your chances of winning) sounds like Mr. Osterloh is asking for trouble.
Paul Gowder - May 30, 2006 at 9:55 am
It gets worse! Intelligent, instrumentally rational (not the same thing!) voters would stay away in droves… after all, assuming the lotto would bring in a huge mob of people (none of whom can do math), the cost of voting (standing in line) would go through the roof, and the benefit to voting would actually go down (di minimis increase because of chance to win money, significant decrease because of weaker vote impact). The consequence of lotto-voting would be to make the electorate stupider… aah well, more Republicans in office I guess.
(I just added that last clause to tweak Simon.)
Mike - May 31, 2006 at 12:58 am
I usually hate when people do this but I wanted to agree with Simon. There are people who would vote who not only have not studied the issues in depth but have not studied the issues at all.
In response to Paul’s comment, I’m not sure that it would prevent interested voters from voting. What I think it would do is further increase the number of absentee voters. (As a side note, I wonder if the person actually has to go to the polls to be eligible for the drawing.)
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