Economists Don't Get That Voting Is Like Gambling, Which They Also Don't Get

The Economist's new Democracy in America blog notes that "Economists tend to agree that voting is irrational act; the odds of one's vote affecting the outcome are tiny. What, then, does this suggest about the thought processes of those who vote?" One of my professors doesn't vote because his chance of being killed on the way to vote was greater than his chance of effecting the election. (This was, though, well before the 2000 election, in which George Bush won the presidency because 500 people decided to risk their lives by voting.) In other countries, people run much greater risks to vote. Why?

Voting is, in this way, reminiscent of gambling. In gambling, we trade present value (the bet) for a lower expected value (the payoff). The odds favor the House, but we still bet. We even bet in state lotteries, in which the payoffs are ludicrously small. Gambling is particularly puzzling given the people are, otherwise, quite risk averse. Ordinarily, we don't trade present value for an expected value unless the expected value is either very safe, or very much higher than the present value.

With gambling, the answer is pretty obvious. Gambling is entertainment, and the House's cut is the amount we pay for the being entertained. We like our hearts to pound and a cold sweat on the back of our necks. We like to back our teams with our money. We will pay for that experience. It seems likely that the answer to why we vote is similar. The entire experience of voting is a benefit, not a cost. There is something of a sense of risk, there are important issues at stake, we can help our team -- and we also get to act as part of the community. They could charge us admission, and we'd still do it.
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I see that over at the Volokh conspiracy, they are also discussing whether voting is pleasurable. They seem to be missing the extent to which the act of voting is fun. I go to the neighborhood school, I invariably see some friends manning the bake sale, I get into line and see the ward workers, who I only see every other year, I fill out my little dots and feed the ballot through the counting machine. I never have to wait very long, I get a little thrill from grabbing hold of the passed democratic torch and I can walk out having done my citizenly duty. What's not to enjoy.