caa a22 4500 606168672 CHVBK 20210128100708.0 cr unu---uuuuu 210128e20151001xx s 000 0 eng 10.1007/s11127-015-0288-1 doi (NATIONALLICENCE)springer-10.1007/s11127-015-0288-1 McMurray Joseph Brigham Young University Economics Department, Provo, USA aut The paradox of information and voter turnout [Elektronische Daten] [Joseph McMurray] The most prominent explanation for the paradox of voter turnout is that citizens are willing to bear the cost of voting because they perceive a benefit (e.g., fulfilling a civic duty or expressing themselves) that is independent of the election outcome. However, a separate literature highlights the empirical importance of information for voter participation, and existing explanations for this are that uninformed citizens either expect smaller benefits from voting, or defer strategically to peers who know more. This paper simply points out that, while either of these theories offers a plausible explanation for the importance of information, neither is robust if the motivation for voting is unrelated to the election outcome. This is because citizens with positive net voting costs should abstain, no matter how well informed, while those with negative net voting costs should vote, no matter how poorly informed. Thus, the purported resolution to the turnout paradox raises a new paradox of information and voter turnout. Intuitively, the quality of a vote should matter only if the vote is somehow instrumental, suggesting that future work should continue to explore instrumental rationales for voting. Springer Science+Business Media New York, 2015 Voting paradox nationallicence Elections nationallicence Information nationallicence Turnout nationallicence Abstention nationallicence Costly voting nationallicence Swing voter's curse nationallicence Public Choice Springer US; http://www.springer-ny.com 165/1-2(2015-10-01), 13-23 0048-5829 165:1-2<13 2015 165 11127 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11127-015-0288-1 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 Metadata rights reserved Springer special CC-BY-NC licence nationallicence 1 research-article jats NATIONALLICENCE NATIONALLICENCE NL-springer NATIONALLICENCE 856 40 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11127-015-0288-1 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI NATIONALLICENCE 100 1- McMurray Joseph Brigham Young University Economics Department, Provo, USA aut NATIONALLICENCE 773 0- Public Choice Springer US; http://www.springer-ny.com 165/1-2(2015-10-01), 13-23 0048-5829 165:1-2<13 2015 165 11127