On undecided voters

[nancylebov]

http://www.chrishayes.org/articles/decision-makers/

From a Kerry canvaser who knocked on a thousand doors....

Undecided voters aren't as rational as you think. Members of the political class may disparage undecided voters, but we at least tend to impute to them a basic rationality. We're giving them too much credit. I met voters who told me they were voting for Bush, but who named their most important issue as the environment. One man told me he voted for Bush in 2000 because he thought that with Cheney, an oilman, on the ticket, the administration would finally be able to make us independent from foreign oil. A colleague spoke to a voter who had been a big Howard Dean fan, but had switched to supporting Bush after Dean lost the nomination. After half an hour in the man's house, she still couldn't make sense of his decision. Then there was the woman who called our office a few weeks before the election to tell us that though she had signed up to volunteer for Kerry she had now decided to back Bush. Why? Because the president supported stem cell research. The office became quiet as we all stopped what we were doing to listen to one of our fellow organizers try, nobly, to disabuse her of this notion. Despite having the facts on her side, the organizer didn't have much luck.

He doesn't address the question of whether decided voters tend to be any more rational, but I suspect not much, if at all.

This makes it even more amazing that countries with elected governments tend to be better places to live than countries with non-elected governments. The voters supply a tiny number of bits considering to have such a large effect they have, but I didn't realize how much low quality thinking goes into those bits.

On the other hand, I've believed for a long time that the main virtue of voting isn't that it gets the best leaders. Voting gets rid of the worst leaders, and a really bad leader (especially if their term in office isn't limited) can do much more damage than a good leader can do to make improvement.

Link thanks to Michael Vassar.

Comments

[heron61.livejournal.com]

It's been my experience that many (I have no idea if it's most) decided voters either have a number of issues that they use as indicators of whether or not they will vote for a particular a candidate, or they have a strong party loyalty.

From my PoV, the troubling thing about undecided voters is that I've seen more than one survery where you had such voters disagree with (in one example I saw) Ronald Reagan's positions on many, perhaps most issues, but voted for him because he "seemed nice" or (to quote a more modern example I read) voted for Shrub because while the disliked the Iraq War, he seemed like the "toughest candidate". The fact that at least 20% of the US electorate makes decisions on this basis horrifies me. I honestly find such people more disturbing and ultimately more destructive to democracy than the furthest-right "Christian nationalist".

[cathyr19355.livejournal.com]

heron61 is also right to a certain extent. There was a great article in New Yorker magazine last year discussing a book about that subject. Alas, I don't remember the title of the article or the book being summarized, but the gist is that people vote based on "proxies"--which could be anything from following the recommendation of a particular blogger, columnist, friend or relative to voting based on particular character traits.

I see why this troubles you, but think of this; *everybody* uses proxies to some degree, because in light of the complexity of the issues and the relative paucity of the information that gets disseminated in forums that can be followed and digested in a few minutes a day, most of us really can't become well-educated on all the relevant issues anymore.

[fidelioscabinet.livejournal.com]

Voting gets rid of the worst leaders, and a really bad leader (especially if their term in office isn't limited) can do much more damage than a good leader can do to make improvement.

I am reminded of the Louisiana gubernatorial race between Edwin Edwards and David Duke, where people were urged to "Vote for the crook--it's important!" It is possible to have to choose the lesser of two evils, without bringing Cthulu into it.

[lpetrazickis.livejournal.com]

Unelected government officials aren't necessarily any more full of rationality than undecided voters. Becoming one does not necessarily necessitate an understanding of the issues.

[cathyr19355.livejournal.com]

It seems to me that the voter who said he/she was voting for Bush because of the environment doesn't count as an "undecided" voter, but that's a quibble.

The problem the Kerry canvasser is having with assessing voter decisions is that he/she's assuming that voters decide based on candidates' stances on the issues. I suspect most people have decided that they can't rely on stances on the issues (even where the voter has correctly ascertained what said stances are). Instead, voters seem to go for which candidate has the most Presidential "character" -- who seems more honest, decisive, calm under pressure, pious and God-fearing, depending on the particular voter--and so forth. That, to me, explains the voter who switched from Dean (who lost his temper pretty impressively in one heavily publicized incident) to Bush (who has not had such a public, or at least publicized, display of temper).