Why Low Voter Turnout Is a Good Thing

 Last week I went to a debate at UVA about elections. There were differing viewpoints on various things, but one thing was unanimous:

It's a tragedy that more people don't vote.

And this certainly is the universal opinion among the sophisticariate (I just made that word up).

Remember "Vote or Die?"

Yeah, lots of dissolute pop stars and other celebtards hectored us with that one from MTV when all we wanted to see was a Peter Gabriel video.

(It later turned out that few of them actually voted, but that was hardly the point.)

Back in college, I had poli sci professors who constantly bemoaned voter turnout, which they viewed as a manifestly bad thing. We should have mandatory voting! Like Australia!

Naturally, when a bunch of poli sci profs all agreed on something, it was my instinct to stake out the opposite view.

But first, I needed facts.

So, since this was pre-Grok, off to the musty stacks I went, where I examined voter turnout around the world. It turned out it was very high in communist countries (90% plus) and otherwise awful countries (70-80%). These tended to be of the Third World variety, ones with horrible economies. Turnout in the U.S. was way lower (around 50% back then).

In the case of communist countries, elections were, of course, a joke, and people voted because they feared retribution if they didn't. 

What of the Third World countries, though? Were their citizens somehow more civic minded and virtuous than ours?

The pattern that emerged, as I spent an all-too-rare late night in the stacks, was that really miserable countries had high turnouts while developed and prosperous ones did not. I correlated turnout with GDP and it was solidly negative.

Interestingly, I just asked Grok to do the same thing, and the negative correlation still holds. (Also of interest: what took me all night in 1981 took me ten seconds now.)

My explanation? In countries like the U.S. with well developed laws protecting one's liberties and property rights, it matters less which candidate wins. One candidate might help you marginally, the other hurt you marginally, but the difference isn't perceived, by many, as enough to justify the cost of paying attention.

It's rational, in its way.

In a distressed country, the landscape is quite different. Who wins can determine whether food will be on the table next year or whether people you know will be taken in the night. You damn well vote.

I wrote a paper about my finding. I think I got a C from my horrified professor, which today I view as a merit badge.

So, while low voter turnout is not a good thing in and of itself, it's the manifestation of a good thing.

Then there's the issue of who votes.

Significant swathes of America can't name the three branches of government or tell you the difference between the First Amendment and the Second.

If we drive more and more people to the polls, that's who's voting. Do you think that's a good thing?

I don't.

If someone can't name the vice president, I don't want them cancelling out my vote. Stay home.

Of course, Democrats fell quite differently, and for good reason. The marginal, low information voter is often easily manipulated by oft-repeated lies (Trump will take away your Social Security!) or the promise of free stuff (looking at you, Mandami voters).

And there, dear reader, you have the real reasons behind the piety of the sophisticates.