andrew_gelman_stats andrew_gelman_stats-2012 andrew_gelman_stats-2012-1565 knowledge-graph by maker-knowledge-mining
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Introduction: I think I can best do my civic duty by running this one every Election Day, just like Art Buchwald on Thanksgiving. . . . With a national election coming up, and with the publicity at its maximum, now is a good time to ask, is it rational for you to vote? And, by extension, wass it worth your while to pay attention to whatever the candidates and party leaders have been saying for the year or so? With a chance of casting a decisive vote that is comparable to the chance of winning the lottery, what is the gain from being a good citizen and casting your vote? The short answer is, quite a lot. First the bad news. With 100 million voters, your chance that your vote will be decisive–even if the national election is predicted to be reasonably close–is, at best, 1 in a million in a battleground district and much less in a noncompetitive district such as where I live. (The calculation is based on the chance that your district’s vote will be exactly tied, along with the chance that you
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1 With a national election coming up, and with the publicity at its maximum, now is a good time to ask, is it rational for you to vote? [sent-5, score-0.425]
2 With a chance of casting a decisive vote that is comparable to the chance of winning the lottery, what is the gain from being a good citizen and casting your vote? [sent-7, score-1.287]
3 With 100 million voters, your chance that your vote will be decisive–even if the national election is predicted to be reasonably close–is, at best, 1 in a million in a battleground district and much less in a noncompetitive district such as where I live. [sent-10, score-1.701]
4 (The calculation is based on the chance that your district’s vote will be exactly tied, along with the chance that your district’s electoral vote is necessary for one party or the other to take control of a house of congress. [sent-11, score-1.319]
5 Both these conditions are necessary for your vote to be decisive. [sent-12, score-0.426]
6 ) So voting doesn’t seem like such a good investment. [sent-13, score-0.281]
7 If your vote is decisive, it will make a difference for 300 million people. [sent-15, score-0.499]
8 With this payoff, a 1 in 10 million chance of being decisive isn’t bad odds. [sent-18, score-0.581]
9 Surveys show that voters choose based on who they think will do better for the country as a whole, rather than their personal betterment. [sent-20, score-0.218]
10 Indeed, when it comes to voting, it is irrational to be selfish, but if you care how others are affected, it’s a smart calculation to cast your ballot, because the returns to voting are so high for everyone if you are decisive. [sent-21, score-0.528]
11 Voting and vote choice (including related actions such as the decision to gather information in order to make an informed vote) are rational in large elections only to the extent that voters are not selfish. [sent-22, score-0.98]
12 That’s also the reason for contributing money to a candidate: Large contributions, or contributions to local elections, could conceivably be justified as providing access or the opportunity to directly influence policy. [sent-23, score-0.222]
13 But small-dollar contributions to national elections, like voting, can be better motivated by the possibility of large social benefit than by any direct benefit to you. [sent-24, score-0.617]
14 Such civically motivated behavior is consistent with both small and large anonymous contributions to charity. [sent-25, score-0.391]
15 The social benefit from voting also explains the declining response rates in opinion polls. [sent-26, score-0.577]
16 Nowadays, polls are so common that a telephone poll was done recently to estimate how often individuals are surveyed (the answer was about once per year). [sent-28, score-0.221]
17 So, yes, if you are in a district or state that might be close, it is rational to vote. [sent-30, score-0.411]
18 You’ve all heard about low voter turnout in America, but, among well-educated, older white people, turnout is around 90% in presidential elections. [sent-33, score-0.475]
19 Some economists treat this as a source of amusement –and, sure, I’d be the first to admit that well-educated, older white people have done a lot of damage to this country–but it’s a funny thing . [sent-34, score-0.321]
20 But I would hope that it would cause some economists to think twice before characterizing voting as irrational or laughable. [sent-41, score-0.533]
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Introduction: I think I can best do my civic duty by running this one every Election Day, just like Art Buchwald on Thanksgiving. . . . With a national election coming up, and with the publicity at its maximum, now is a good time to ask, is it rational for you to vote? And, by extension, wass it worth your while to pay attention to whatever the candidates and party leaders have been saying for the year or so? With a chance of casting a decisive vote that is comparable to the chance of winning the lottery, what is the gain from being a good citizen and casting your vote? The short answer is, quite a lot. First the bad news. With 100 million voters, your chance that your vote will be decisive–even if the national election is predicted to be reasonably close–is, at best, 1 in a million in a battleground district and much less in a noncompetitive district such as where I live. (The calculation is based on the chance that your district’s vote will be exactly tied, along with the chance that your di
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Introduction: Actually, $100,000 auction. I learned about it after seeing the following email which was broadcast to a couple of mailing lists: Dear all, I am now writing about something completely different! I need your help “voting” for our project, and sending this e-mail to others so that they can also vote for our project. As you will see from the video, the project would fund *** Project: I am a finalist for a $100,000 prize from Brigham and Women’s Hospital. My project is to understand how ***. Ultimately, we want to develop a ***. We expect that this ** can be used to *** Here are the instructions: 1. Go to the web page: http://brighamandwomens.org/research/BFF/default.aspx 2. scroll to the bottom and follow the link to “Vote” 3. select project #** 4. FORWARD THIS E-MAIL TO AS MANY PEOPLE AS YOU CAN. Best regards, ** I love that step 4 is in ALL CAPS, just to give it that genuine chain-letter aura. Isn’t this weird? First, that this foundation would give ou
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