Voting: a game theory look

[Dan.]

Borodog's thread inspired me, but I decided to create a new thread to discuss it.

Basically, it's possible that no one vote at all. However, if no one votes, a single person has incentive to "cheat" the no-one-vote agreement, since his or her vote would be the only one counted, so whatever he or she says goes. Now, if one person cheats, another then also has incentive to cheat, and the result is a landslide where a whole slew of people go out and vote, since they all are given incentive to vote. It's a very simple game theory problem relating to cartel agreements, quite common in microeconomics.

[Borodog]

Such an argument might hold, but in only holds for a most a small number of voters.

Additionally, this argument ignores issues exterior to the game rules, such as whether or not people are not voting because they do not recognize the legitimacy of the process itself. If literally nobody is voting because they don't believe in the legitimacy of the voting system, one person really does not have an incentive to vote and decide everything, because nobody will abide by the results anyway.

[Poofler]

[ QUOTE ]
Such an argument might hold, but in only holds for a most a small number of voters.

Additionally, this argument ignores issues exterior to the game rules, such as whether or not people are not voting because they do not recognize the legitimacy of the process itself. If literally nobody is voting because they don't believe in the legitimacy of the voting system, one person really does not have an incentive to vote and decide everything, because nobody will abide by the results anyway.

[/ QUOTE ]

Possibly, though every non-voter who lacks faith in the system must be 100% certain that no one will abide by the results. If they perceive there to be even a 1% chance the results hold and the decision of the few voters is enforced, there becomes incentive.

[Borodog]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Such an argument might hold, but in only holds for a most a small number of voters.

Additionally, this argument ignores issues exterior to the game rules, such as whether or not people are not voting because they do not recognize the legitimacy of the process itself. If literally nobody is voting because they don't believe in the legitimacy of the voting system, one person really does not have an incentive to vote and decide everything, because nobody will abide by the results anyway.

[/ QUOTE ]

Possibly, though every non-voter who lacks faith in the system must be 100% certain that no one will abide by the results. If they perceive there to be even a 1% chance the results hold and the decision of the few voters is enforced, there becomes incentive.

[/ QUOTE ]

All you need is for most people to be fairly certain that most people will not abide by the results. People do communicate, you know.

[Poofler]

I don't see how knowing AND TRUSTING (which is another assumption of yours) that most people will not abide erradicates incentive in the event that...

[Borodog]

[ QUOTE ]
I don't see how knowing AND TRUSTING (which is another assumption of yours) that most people will not abide erradicates incentive in the event that...

[/ QUOTE ]

Your friend Bob elects himself King. Do you genuflect and start paying him taxes?

[Mickey Brausch]

What's the original incentive NOT to vote? So that no one votes, as a possibility. I didn't see that.

[Dan.]

[ QUOTE ]
What's the original incentive NOT to vote? So that no one votes, as a possibility. I didn't see that.

[/ QUOTE ]

The assumption Borodog set forth is that no one person's vote matters, so if everyone beleives this, then no one votes. And so this experiment just begins with the assumption that no one votes because the see no value in it.

[Poofler]

Why do they think no one vote matters?

If it's because your one vote won't decide an election, you esentially are describing the current state of the world where we vote out of civic duty. And without civic duty, the cheating incentive would run up the numbers past just Bob and his neighbor.

If it's because they do not recognize the legitamacy of the process, that specific reason why it is illegitimate matters. If the culprit is rampant corruption of results, invalidating the votes, there really is no incentive, and I don't see how anyone votes. The action would be meaningless. If all voters believe no candidate was different from another candidate, then I see no incentive to vote. But they would still abide by however the existing government decided the election, as they abstained out of indifference and utility, not out of disgust for government.

[Dan.]

Your post is better directed at Borodog's post. I'm just trying to explain, through game theory, why people vote.