[1] Altruistic voting has been compared to purchasing a lottery ticket, in which the probability of winning is extremely low but the payoff is large enough that the expected benefit outweighs the cost.
The theory suggests that individual voters do, in fact, derive personal utility from influencing the outcome of elections in favor of the candidate that they believe will implement policies for the greater good of the entire population.
This leads to the so-called paradox of voting, in which rational choice models of voter behavior predict tiny turnouts which simply do not occur.
If voters assumed to be rational but also to have altruistic tendencies and some preference for outcomes enhancing the social welfare of others, they will reliably vote in favor of the policies they perceive to be for the common good, rather than for their individual benefit.
[6] He claims that what he calls the "Self-Interest Voter Hypothesis" (SIVH), the theory that individuals' policy preferences are narrowly selfish, is empirically wrong.