I just can’t be bothered to vote. Or even to tell the world why I can’t be bothered to vote.
Thanks to Sam and Matthew B for building such a great site. It is mySociety’s first one that was made entirely by volunteers. It’s nice to launch a whole website when all I had to do was configure the web server and write a deploy script :)
Hi Francis,
http://www.notapathetic.com is a great site.
I personally don’t feel any need for anonymity, so I shall reveal my thinking on the subject here. I suspect I haven’t voted much in the past because the appropriate cost is high, and the expected benefit is low.
The appropriate cost is high because I feel the decision is important, and should not be taken lightly, and should involve considerable research and deliberation. My prejudices do not help me to decide quickly – I feel no natural sympathy for any of the choices. I simply do not know which choice is better, and I am confident the work involved in answering this question to my satisfaction is enormous.
The expected benefit is low, because it is very unlikely that my vote will have much influence.
I understand that a population made up entirely of people like me would not constitute a functioning democracy, but that is significant only if everyone is like me, which is against the evidence.
Perhaps the amount I spend on working out how to vote is less than you. I do spend more than most people though, for example http;//www.flourish.org/election2001 last time. But even if I didn’t have much to spend, I would still go on a more cusory assessment. If we can’t make a quick assessment, what is the point… We’re managers, we have to chose a party to delegate to. We don’t have to micromanage, surely?