L. Rice 8
Important for the analysis that follows, this should occur regardless of the presence or absence of
a contest in which to participate.
But citizens, at least from the perspective of what is required of them, have little reason to
pay attention to political information when they do face a contest and even less when they do
not. In fact, voters may actually be more informed than a comparison of the benefits of
acquiring information to the cost of doing so would suggest. As Fiorina aptly states, “Informed
citizens pose the same type of problem for rational choice arguments as do citizens who
incomprehensibly insist on voting” (1990 p. 334). Just as for casting a vote, there is no direct,
tangible benefit for most citizens to become well informed about political affairs – the incentive
to shirk should be quite high. But many do vote and many do become at least informed enough
to cast a reasoned vote. This does not require much of citizens. They need only learn enough to
make a decision they can live with regarding which candidate deserves their support and for
many citizens the amount of information needed to do so is minimal. Indeed, some research
(McKelvey and Ordeshook 1986) suggests that low-informed voters make the same voting
decision as they would if they were fully informed.
4
For this to occur, voters must find reliable
cognitive shortcuts.
Although perhaps not well informed according to the textbook definition of a good
citizenry, voters have proven themselves capable of economically making good voting decisions
(Key 1966; Fiorina 1981; Popkin 1994; Sniderman, Brody, and Tetlock 1991).
5
For example,
they may vote retrospectively based on the nation’s economy or personal finances and
circumstances or they may use candidates’ gaffes on the campaign trail as evidence of
4
However, a probit analysis by Bartels (1996) comparing low-informed voting to a hypothetical fully informed
decision using NES data indicates that votes for president of the low informed and the “fully informed” may differ
by as much as ten percentage points.
5
While this language was employed by the latter two and not the former two, they all in practice discuss rational
cognitive shortcuts employed by voters.
Convention