Paradox of Voting

(redirected from Voting paradox)
Also found in: Medical, Wikipedia.

Paradox of Voting

The idea that because the physical process of voting is inconvenient and each vote usually matters very little, the rational person should not vote. Yet large proportions of populations vote. The paradox occurs if one studies voters and other political actors in the same way as one would study rational economic actors.

References in periodicals archive ?

The answer is simple: you were the victim of a jury voting paradox.

Jury voting paradoxes

Katz's treatment of each of these types and of their internal consistencies and puzzles (the voting paradox under varieties of individualist popular sovereignty democracies) is astute, often enlightening, and consistently rigorous.

Demoracy and Elections

The voting paradox is most closely associated with Kenneth Arrow's work, which showed that "given certain conditions, it is impossible-whether through majority or any other method of aggregating individual preferences-to assure that social outcomes will not be paradoxical.

Voting without law?

I found some confusion in defining the Condorcet score and explaining the Voting Paradox on pages 39-40.

Equity: In Theory and Practice

Why so many voters go to the polls is called "the voting paradox.

The Public Choice revolution: Public Choice has demystified and undeified the state