  The logic of collective action has become one of the richest areas of research and theory in rational choice theory in the social sciences and philosophy. Much of that literature focuses on the explanation of varied social actions and outcomes, including spontaneous actions, social norms, and large institutions. One of its main areas is efforts to explain behavior in elections. In general, voting seems clearly to be a case of collective action for the mutual benefit of all those who support a particular candidate or whose interests would be furthered by that candidate’s election. If voting entails costs to individuals whereas the benefit from voting is essentially a collective benefit only very weakly dependent on any individual’s vote, individuals may find it in their interest not to vote (Downs 1957). When the number of voters on one side of an election is in the tens of millions, no individual’s vote is likely to matter at all. Even though it is not narrowly in their own individual interest to do so if there are any costs to be borne in going to the polls to vote and in learning enough about various candidates to know which ones would further a voter’s interests, millions of people vote. This is one of the most notorious failures of the rational choice literature. A standard response to the phenomenon of massive voting is to note how cheap the action is and how much public effort is expended in exhorting citizens to vote. But it seems likely that much of the voting we see is normatively motivated.