Paradox of voting

Responses to the paradox have included the view that voters vote to express their preference for a candidate rather than affect the outcome of the election, that voters exercise some degree of altruism, or that the paradox ignores the collateral benefits associated with voting besides the resulting electoral outcome.

"[2][3] The mathematician Charles L. Dodgson, better known as Lewis Carroll, published the paper "A Method of Taking Votes on More than Two Issues" in 1876.

[7] A 2020 study found the anticipated competitiveness of elections based on polls resulted in an causal increase of voter turnout.

[9] The altruistic utility increases with the large number of voters of the same party, which can explain the rationality of voting despite only a small chance of individually affecting the outcome.

[11] Geoffrey Brennan and Loren Lomasky suggest that voters derive "expressive" benefits from supporting particular candidates – analogous to cheering on a sports team – rather than voting in hopes of achieving the political outcomes they prefer.

[12][13] The magnitudes of electoral wins and losses are very closely watched by politicians, their aides, pundits and voters, because they indicate the strength of support for candidates, and tend to be viewed as an inherently more accurate measure of such than mere opinion polls (which have to rely on imperfect sampling).