...in the Division of Labour "Should I vote in the Memphis Mayoral Election? Essay Contest": Brent Butgereit, a Rhodes student (and the peer tutor for my econ 101 classes) whose entry comparing voting to cheering at a football game is below the fold. The takeaway point: "so should you vote? If you like to show that you can make noise for its own sake, then you should." Brent wins a book. I don't know which one yet, but he wins a book.

It should be pointed out that I am a college professor. I have opportunities to "make noise for its own sake" every week in class.

Thanks to everyone who submitted entries. I was looking for a blend of cost/benefit calculus and reasoning about engaged citizenship. For the record, I didn't vote. Was I forsaking my civic duty? I think not. First, the election was a complete blowout. Second, I was teaching and hosting David Zetland, who gave a handful of excellent talks and spent a lot of time with students at Rhodes. Third, there are a lot of other, very productive and civically-engaged ways to spend my time. Fourth, I received an automated phone call from one of the candidates urging me to get out and vote (the candidate lost). If voting is going to encourage political telemarketing, this is a disincentive to vote. Yes, I could have voted early, but that would have involved jumping through hoops to find out where, when, and how I could do so. Given everything else I had going on and the near-certainty that it was going to be a blowout, early voting runs into basically the same cost/benefit calculus.

One entrant, a Rhodes 2008 graduate, offered the following reason to vote that applies an insight from one of our on-campus lectures: "Bryan Caplan has thrown down the gauntlet and outright challenges smart people, such as yourself, to vote. Don't be noise; rather, be one of Caplan's informed elite who actually counts in the tallies."

For This Week’s Episode of “Trade-Off Theatre” it’s: “Should I Vote?”
Brent Butgereit, Rhodes College Class of 2011

I cannot tell you whether or not you should vote, but I can contextualize a scenario for which you can decide that it’s worth your time. The Memphis Flyer recently printed an article discussing AC Wharton’s absence from the major debates and simultaneous lead in the polls (Wharton’s polls, his opponent’s, and third-party sources all consistently show he is in the lead by at least 25 points and as much as 40). But we’re economists. We rarely trust polls. For the sake of argument, let’s suppose a “best-case” voting scenario (i.e., one in which it would be worth your time to actually vote). If there were only one hundred people voting it would almost certainly be worth the opportunity cost of doing so (at the very least you would be able to say “I was one of the 100 who voted even though might personal vote might not have mattered”). This scenario is, of course, unlikely. According to the Commercial Appeal, expected voter turnout estimates are not high. The Election Commission administrator, Richard Holden, suggested that turnout could be as much as 40 percent - the 2007 citywide election drew about 38 percent (164,898 voters). However, Holden doesn’t suspect that turnout would be as large as the 2007 election because that year, fifteen races stood in contention: mayor, city court clerk and thirteen council seats.

So let’s try to make going to the booths more worth your while. Suppose there is only a 20 percent voter turnout. Should you vote? If you think your cheering and applause would be heard over everyone else’s in the University of Alabama’s Bryant-Denny Stadium when it’s packed, you should. A full Bryant-Denny is roughly equivalent to 20 percent of voters in Memphis (≈101,000 people). If everyone was shouting at the same volume, would you be heard?

Of course, we may be expecting a large turnout still. Suppose only two percent showed up. Now we are applauding in the Orpheum (except we would have to be one-fourth as loud as everyone else)*. Even supposing a neck-and-neck race between the top three candidates, it’s not clear it will be your voice that puts the decibel level of your candidate’s audience above either of the other’s. If we trust the Appeal’s data, then Wharton has the lead with 45 percent, Carol Chumney is second with 11 percent, and Myron Lowery is third with 10 percent (this is from a telephone poll by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research – they give a margin of error of plus-minus five percent). So should you vote? If you like to show that you can make noise for its own sake, then you should.

*By this I mean that everyone is at normal volume and you are one-fourth of your normal volume. Another way to think about it would be to consider being in one of four Orpheums cheering at the same time. There are approximately 2,500 seats in the Orpheum and a two percent voter turnout is approximately 10,000 people.)