Info/Law

The Arizona Voter Reward Act, if passed by Arizonans via their November ballot, would establish a million-dollar windfall to be bestowed upon one fortunate random voter. The Act is the progeny of Mark Osterloh, who hopes to encourage civic virtue and improve participation in elections.

Reaction has been almost uniformly negative, and often rather prissy in tone. Criticisms seem to come in one of four flavors:

1. Voters should not need to be bribed to vote. Our forefathers fought and died so we could vote; it’s a solemn civic duty; etc.
2. It’s illegal under federal law, which prohibits paying a voter to induce them to vote. (Admittedly, this is bad if accurate.)
3. Higher turnout is not helpful; it simply means that more uninformed morons participate, which isn’t good for anyone.
4. This cheapens voting; treating it as a paid service is somehow tawdry. (A similar argument posits that having to overcome some difficulties to cast one’s ballot is character-building and forces us to meditate upon the importance of the event.)

I don’t have an opinion on the plan – since I don’t live in Arizona, and will vote regardless, I’m impossible to greenmail. That said, I find the analysis of this move almost entirely trite and puerile. Here’s what I want to know:

1. Surveys show 12% of respondents said they’d be more likely to vote if the reward system passed; 10% would be less likely. Is a net gain of 2% of voters worth a million bucks? (It might be, in a $9 billion+ state budget.) Do these groups of voters differ in terms of knowledge of the issues, partisan affiliation, or other key demographic indicators?
2. Why do we assume that voters are well-informed — or, at least, better-informed than people who don’t vote? Voters might be virtuous (voting as a civic duty), but dumb or ignorant.
3. Assume non-voters, now motivated by the possibility of a million smackeroos, enter the voting booth and play One Potato Two Potato to decide among their options. Why is this a problem? Theoretically, these “blank slate” voters distribute their ballots evenly among all candidates or choices, negating the effect of their votes. (Note that this might differ under systems that require runoffs if no candidate reaches 50% of the vote – better-informed voters might re-align their preferences in a second round of voting that would not have occurred absent the expanded turnout. This seems an edge case, but it’s worth keeping in mind.) The only risk here seems to be that a less thoughtful voter might receive the $1 million, but that brings up some rather difficult subjective questions about how to evaluate what counts as “informed.”
4. Does the prospect of reward alter behavior before voting? For example, from an optimistic perspective, the voter might learn more about available choices, knowing he / she will have to select from them eventually (since this person wants a shot at the Big Money).

The information that voters have, how it’s presented (and when), and its effects are of great interest to me after my sideline into the “marketplace of ideas.” While Osterloh may be naive in his approach, his critics are frequently banal in their responses, and that’s disappointing, because this is a neat idea.

Filed under: Cognitive Decisionmaking, Voting