POS 3204 Exam 2 Study Guide Downs was the first to model voting after economic models He created a formula to calculate the worth of a vote o Vote Benefits x Probability of Decisiveness Cost o The implication of this is that voting is almost always irrational Riker and Ordershook 1967 added to Down s formula for the calculation of voting o Vote Benefits x Probability of Decisiveness Cost D o The D factor is the voter s civic duty sense of satisfaction efficacy and a desire to affirm one s partisanship o The implications of this study was that voting is not always about being decisive because an individual vote will not make a difference in the election but it is possibly about its intrinsic psychological benefit The voting dilemma says that voting has a cost It takes gas thought about the candidate time off of work etc The actual rewards of voting are relatively small Because of this cost of voting one should only take the time to vote if they are likely to change the outcome of the election Thus it is irrational to vote especially at the national level Heuristics are simplifying mechanisms that people use to make decisions There are different types of heuristics including the availability heuristic symbolism heuristic ideology heuristic and affect heuristic Availability heuristic states that more memorable events are thought to be more common This means that it is important to get one s name out To put this into an example if you are asked which kills more people a year sharks or horses you are likely to say sharks just because a shark attack is more memorable than a horse attack This heuristic gives the incumbent an advantage because their name is well known This is where yard signs and political advertisements can lead to an advantage Ideology heuristic is a general ideology alignment used in place of careful consideration of the issues People will vote because they recognize a candidate s party id instead of actually knowing the candidate and what they stand for Affect heuristic is when voters evaluate candidates based on an immediate emotional reaction rather than reason The halo affect is an example of this people prefer tall people to short pretty people to plain people This is a major heuristic for uninformed voters An implication of this is that candidates should be cognizant of how they look Authority heuristic is utilized when a candidate gets support from others This was used in a California insurance study which showed that knowledge of positions of interest groups allowed people to vote correctly An implication of this is that getting endorsements matter Examples include the Tea Party and unions Politicians should play up endorsements Correct voting is a choice that a voter would not change if they were provided with complete information Lau and Redlawsk conducted an experiment in which they provided voters with information about hypothetical candidates and have them vote After voting additional information is provided and voters are asked if they would like to change their vote 70 kept their original vote while 30 changed their vote Although this could be because of cognitive dissonance and the motivation to maintain initial beliefs In normal circumstances heuristics can increase correct voting for high sophisticates and decrease it for low sophisticates But if candidates do not match traditional conceptions of their party high sophisticates vote worse than low sophisticates The trustee and delegate models of government refer to two different types of policy representation regarding the extent to which policy makers respond to the policy opinions of citizens The trustee model states that people cede power to their representatives to vote as the representative sees fit The delegate model states the representative is to vote as the majority of their constituents see fit Policy responsiveness in the branches of government greatly depends on whether or not their positions involve elections For example representativeness is greatest in Congress meaning Congressmen do the best job at representing their electorate while it is lowest in the Supreme Court because the justices are not elected This fits more with the trustee model than with the delegation model because politicians may have an irrational fear of being voted out of office There is also interest group accountability The enfranchisement paradox refers to the fact that the expansion of the voting rights tends to add the least informed to the electorate For example the 26th amendment allowed 18 year olds to vote and they make up the least informed This paradox also refers to the economically disadvantaged and motor voters as well as expanded voting rights for felons Solutions include that democracy may not require as much of citizens as we d like to think Mueller said that Democracy does not demand much of citizens rather it is welcoming to citizens who are minimally informed and self interested The Healy Malholtra and Moe article found that when a person s favorite team loses they are more likely to vote for the competing candidate rather than the incumbent during an election because it makes people experience a negative emotional state and they want to hold someone accountable Wlzien and Erikson studied whether or not a candidate s campaign was effective in getting them elected The article stated that some campaign effects are lasting while others quickly deteriorate Campaign shocks are larger in the beginning of the campaign but these do not typically last Campaign shocks become smaller as the election nears but they have more affect on voters The study showed that campaigns do matter and that late campaigning has the biggest effect on Election Day results The special concerns for female candidates are that they are viewed to be weaker on defense than their male counterparts by the public Minority candidates are that they are often subject to the Bradley effect which originated during a California governor election in which an African American candidate received overwhelming support in the polls but when it came to the election he barely won This difference in the polling and election results was because people were caused to say they were going to vote for the minority candidate because of Social Desirability Bias they did not want to be discriminated against for not voting for the minority candidate even if their decision had to do with policy reasons rather than race Converse s paper argued that most people