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Justin Abernethy
Professor Corner
Focused Inquiry – Univ. 111
25 November 2014
Voting and Apathy: Who Votes and Who Cares
The fact is, voter turnout in the United States is low—lower than most other
industrialized nations. In fact, only an average of sixty percent of eligible voters participate in
presidential elections, compared to an average of seventy percent of other OECD countries
(FairVote). However, the problem that plaques American democracy today is the not just low
voter turnout, especially for state and local elections, but also a problem that is not so easily
quantitatively verified, Americans’ general and lack of knowledge of and apathy towards
politics—something that is directly linked to poor turnout. Ultimately, these obstacles to the
proper functioning of representative democracy and subsequently government can effectively be
overcome by a national increase in the quality of civics education and the reduction of other
negative factors to society such as poverty. Although other solutions have been offered, such as
compulsory voting or the abstinence of uninformed voters, these solutions are not well supported
and could possibly do more damage than good to an already fragile political system.
In his article, “The Ethics of Voting,” Jason Brennan argues that, in general, citizens do
not have a “moral obligation” to vote, or even participate in politics, but do have a moral
obligation to vote well if they choice to vote. He defines voting well as when one votes for what
he believes will benefit the common good, which must be supported by “sound evidence” and
rational thinking. Therefore, in order to meet these criteria, one is required to make a conscious
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effort to be generally well-informed. Brennan argues that voting without proper justification is
unethical because votes can have a significant effect on how government functions and what
decisions it makes, which in turn can negatively affect the lives of others and the overall
common good. Therefore, as a solution to prevent uninformed and potentially harmful voting,
Brennan argues that citizens who are unprepared to vote simply should not vote.
Although his argument on why voting is not a “moral obligation” and should not be
compulsory is quite valid and persuasive, his other main argument is quite the contrary. In this
case, Brennan’s assumption that irresponsible voting is the sole detriment to American
democracy and consequentially the proper functioning of the government and his subsequent
solution to the problem are both short-sighted and fundamentally flawed. While only focusing on
the problem of uninformed voters, he has neglected the equally important problem of low voter
turnout. The real problem is that not enough people are showing up to the polls on Election Day
in the first place, along with reality that a significant amount of voters tend to not be wellinformed, an observation that is more part of common knowledge these days.
Of course, in order to understand why voter turnout is as low as it is, one must first
understand who actually votes. According to the Pew Research Center again, nonvoters are more
likely than voters to be young, part of an ethnic minority, less educated, and less
socioeconomically well-off. Therefore, one can obviously assume that better education and
poverty reduction can help in making more regular and informed voters, considering that they
highly correlated to nonvoting. The Pew Research Center, in another survey titled “Who Votes,
Who Doesn’t, and Why,” confirms that the lack of political knowledge is closed linked to lesser
frequencies of voting, with seventy-six percent of voters who vote rarely admitting that they
generally “know little about” the candidates, compared to only forty-four percent of regular
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voters. Clearly, here lies a problem, not just with the fact that these people are uninformed but
also that their lack of knowledge may directly or indirectly cause their abstinence from voting.
However, the solution is simple and obvious: better education. According to various studies on
voter participation, people who ate more educated—and, of course, more involving in politics in
general—are more likely to vote. Hopefully, this should not be news to anyone. In an article
published in American Behavioral Scientist, Kei Kawashima-Ginsberg and Peter Levine, through
a nationwide survey and analysis, concluded that among young people, a group with a generally
low voter turnout but who also represent the future voters of this country, “high-quality civic
education predicted more informed voting” (675). More broadly, they found that “educational
progress” by itself has a strong correlation with “electoral engagement,” and more specifically
that it, combined with “school enrollment,” predicted more “political knowledge” (678).
Overall, through many other studies, it has been clearly established that high-quality civic
education, plus other factors such as good socioeconomic status and parental encouragement, are
highly correlated to political participation and informed voting, making education a pivotal
solution to young people’s apathy.
One way states have attempted to boost voter turnout and promote more informed voting
is through establishing new civic education requirements for high school students and other
voting laws, such as early voting and Election Day Registration. Automatically, given the
evidence already stated, one would assume that these policies would have a clear positive effect
on the political participation of youths. However, this is not the case. In fact, these state policies
have been found to not have a significant effect on political participation. Essentially, in the
previously mentioned study by Kawashima-Ginsberg and Levine, they found that, in the 2012
presidential election, although the rates of political participation and political knowledge of
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young people in many states varied considerably, the civic education policies/requirements of
these states in actuality had no significant effect on informed voting. Instead, they found “that
individual experiences with families and school and socioeconomic class [could] explain almost
all of the differences [among] states” (678). Furthermore, there is also evidence that suggests that
early voting can “[diminish] the knowledge of voters concerning political candidates and their
positions” (McSweaney 2011). Plus, certain state voting registration laws have been known to
lower voter turnout (Kawashima-Ginsberg 681). Overall, the effect of these state policies
suggests that an improvement in education and school environment and the reduction of poverty
overall can have more effect on voter turnout and the general political knowledge of voters than
broad state laws/policies. Ultimately, it is up to the states, and possibly the federal government,
to come up a different approach that has emphasis on ensuring better quality education school by
school.
Still, besides a lack of education, there is another problem that contributes to low voter
turnout: the general lack of incentive for citizens to be informed voters, or even vote at all. In a
country where news coverage—especially of politics—is habitually not fair and balanced,
election campaigns are flooded with negative and often misleading advertisements, and corporate
influences and private interests underscore the outcomes of many election, one can easily see
that voting while being well-informed can be difficult. The late, great Gary Becker, a Nobel
Prize winning economist and sociologist once wrote, “Since the great majority of voters
presumably do not expect to influence election outcomes, who they support is influenced
disproportionately by campaign rhetoric, debates among candidates that have little intellectual
content, and by other methods of persuasion that are not very informative about the candidates.”
Similarly, Becker more clearly explains that “individuals have little incentive to be well
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informed on political issues.” Of course, there are other common explanations for why people
do not vote, such as many merely lack confidence in their government or many live in a highly
population voting precinct and may find it difficult to stand in line for hours on end, plus many
more (Pew Research Center). In the end, it is apparent that lack of education and poverty are not
the only contributing factors to poor voting practices and turnout; a more basic, fundamental
problem is that people are not properly incentivized to vote well or sometimes even vote at all.
Of course, there have been other solutions presented to solve this country’s voting
problem. A relatively popular one is Jason Brennan’s argument that uninformed and irrational
voters simply should not vote, as mentioned previously. In further, more specific refutation of
“The Ethics of Voting,” Brennan’s argument for the abstinence of these bad voters is faulty and
more than a little naïve, especially when considering that the implementation of more effective
civic education of young people is ultimately a better solution. However, his argument is faulty
in another way.
In a country whose voter turnout is already lower than most other industrialized
countries, it is still better for one to vote while uninformed than not vote at all. The more people
vote, the more opinions are voiced, automatically guarantying a greater diversity of opinion and
more people represented under their government. Furthermore, the poor, who are less likely to be
informed and less likely to vote in general, are more likely to fall into the category of those who
are not technically “rational” voters in Brennan’s definition. The fact is, the poor already have an
unequal say in politics as it is, and if Brennan’s bad voters abstained from voting, the poor have
an even more unequal say. If this were to happen, the U.S. would become a plutocracy, one of
the most undesirable forms of government in existence. Therefore, a great diversity of opinion
and beliefs, regardless of their validity, is paramount to the functioning government and society.
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It is also important to preventing extremism and even gridlock, according to James Madison,
who in the tenth paper of The Federalist Papers argues that political pluralism is essential to
preventing factionalism and conflict within the government. He also argues for a representative
democracy in which citizens do not directly vote on issues, but rather vote for candidates who
represent their beliefs on those issues, which the United States’ form of government today. He
furthermore argues that in a republic, it is inconsequential that citizens vote with their personal
interests at heart because these interests are effectively tamed and filtered by the representatives
who are elected with the responsibility to govern effectively and “whose wisdom may best
discern the true interest of their country.” These representatives take the private interests of the
people and interpret them in a way that benefits the common good. Although elected officials
today often do not represent the will of the people while filtering out private interests that go
against the common good the way Madison original envisioned, it is still imperative to
representative democracy today. Overall, a diminished number of voiced opinions through
voting cannot benefit American democracy.
The fact is, voting is a right. Using that right in any way, even if irresponsibly or not at
all, is not unethical. Sometimes people need more guidance on how to exercise a right, though
they should never be discouraged from using it. In general, in the case of a representative
democracy, it is better for people to vote while un-informed or without justification than not vote
at all, in order to ensure a wider range of voiced opinions. The problem with the democratic
system in the United States is not that the polls are “polluted” with “bad votes,” and, likewise,
the solution is not that “bad” voters should merely abstain, as Brennan suggests. Rather, the
problem is generally low voter turnout paired with an electorate that is not as well-informed as
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they should be, and, as many studies have shown, the solution to this kink in democracy lies in
ensuring better quality education, eliminating poverty, and better incentivizing people to vote.
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Work Cited
Becker, Gary. “Why People Vote and What That Implies-Becker - The Becker-Posner Blog.”
'The Becker-Posner Blog.’ Web. 25 Nov. 2014.
Brennan, Jason. “The Ethics of Voting : The Art of Theory – a Quarterly Journal of Political
Philosophy.” The Art of Theory a Quarterly Journal of Political Philosophy RSS.
Web. 25 Nov. 2014.
Kawashima-Ginsberg, Kei, and Peter Levine. “Policy Effects on Informed Political
Engagement.” American Behavioral Scientist 58.5 (2014): 665-88. Academic
Search Complete. Web. 3 Dec. 2014.
“The Party of Nonvoters.” Pew Research Center for the People and the Press RSS. Pew
Charitable Trusts, 31 Oct. 2014. Web. 04 Dec. 2014.
Madison, James. “The Federalist #10.” Editorial. Daily Adviser [New York] 22 Nov. 1787.
Constitution Society. Web. 24 Nov. 2014.
McSweeney, Dean. “Early Voting and Informed Voters in America.” Parliamentary Affairs 64.3
(2011): 552-63. Academic Search Complete. Web. 3 Dec. 2014.
“Who Votes, Who Doesn't, and Why.” Pew Research Center for the People and the Press RSS.
Pew Charitable Trusts, 18 Oct. 2006. Web. 04 Dec. 2014.
“Voter Turnout.” FairVote. FairVote. Web. 02 Dec. 2014.