The Tao of Gaming

I read economist Arnold Kling's The Case for Staying Home. I normally like Kling's writing (I'm strongly attracted to libertarianism); but this was terrible. Kling describes why he isn't going to vote:

I agree that the Republicans deserve to lose this November....This time, I want to send a different message. The message is, "I find both parties totally unsatisfactory. I value liberty and individual responsibility, and legislators of both parties have flouted those values in recent years."

...

I want everyone who agrees with me to stay home, too.

....

I am thinking that if turnout is particularly low, somebody, somewhere will notice, and maybe some candidates committed to liberty and individual responsibility will emerge next time.

Let's apply basic communication theory here. If you decide not to vote, you get one bit of information. A "I didn't vote" could mean:

• I'm lazy
• I'm stupid
• I'm happy with how things are going
• I'm sad there are no libertarian candidates
• I'm sad there are no fascist candidates [insert joke about party you hate here]
• I wish I had gotten more Zoloft last week

Probably people are not voting for all those reasons, and more. It's impossible to differentiate them. Of course, if you have access to a megaphone, you can proclaim your reasons to the sky. But that doesn't do anything.

On the other hand, if you vote for a candidate you like, but who has no chance of winning, you clearly indicate your displeasure. And while I don't expect Kling to know about communication theory, as an economist, he should know a bit about signaling. Voting imposes a real cost (time, aggravation), so voting for that schmuck whose going to get 1% of the vote shows that you care. And, unlike not voting, there's no mistaking it.

What, you say you don't like any of the candidates? Write one in. Write in the gutsy challenger who lost the primary. Those people you voted for in the primary who lost? Write them in. (Kling voted in the democratic primaries, picking the candidates that were not endorsed by the teacher's union). That says:

• I dislike the Republican party's candidate
• I dislike the Democratic party's main candidate
• But, if you would get your act together, I'd vote for you.

Why does this work? Well, now I have a whole bunch of bits I can use to get my point across. Instead of having 1 option standing in for dozens or hundreds of reasons, I can tailor it.

A counterargument is that, unless we coordinate, we'll each give a candidate one or two votes. But these will all get aggregated into a single number: "Other." As in:

Nameless Suit (R) -- X% Nameless Suit (D) -- Y% Other -- Z%

If you can get a enough people to do that, then you send a clear signal. Ideally your other vote would go to a viable candidate, but there you have it. If Other gets really big, then people may start saying "We can organize and get somewhere."

I firmly believe my vote doesn't matter. The odds of me breaking (or causing) a tie are negligible. And if that happens we all know it's going to the courts. So, at the end of the day, all I have is a signal. I'm not going to throw that away.

[H/T Prof. Bainbridge]