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Tim Tyler's avatar

If people were really casting their votes to do what is "better for the world", the substantial correlations between political party and gender, race, wealth, educational achievement, geographical factors and the city-rural divide would make little sense.

In practice, voters have different values. They are clearly not all trying to do what is "better for the world". If voters suspect that other voters might have different values from them, then abstaining to give others more of a chance is likely to seem less attractive.

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Overcoming Bias Commenter's avatar

I really like this model challenging the naive assumption that everyone should vote, never thought of it like that!

If I understand correctly it assumes that the partisan votes even out on average. Given that I make the decision not to vote because of relative ignorance under the model, how can I be sure that I am not part of the partisan vote (and therefore would move the average by not voting). Is there a reason why this effect would average out if many people make this decision (it would average out if both sides of the partisan vote followed the model equally likely, but is that realistic)?

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