  Note that, as mentioned earlier, the election of a candidate is a good whose provision is a step function of the number of votes. If there are n votes cast, then half of n − 1 votes spells defeat and half of n + 1 spells victory. If, as Mayor Daley did with the Chicago votes in the US presidential election of 1960, I could withhold my vote until all others have been counted, my vote might actually tip the result to victory for my candidate. In actual fact, the typical voter casts a vote in a state of ignorance about the final count. I might readily expect the margin to be very large or I might expect it to be very narrow. But I am unlikely to expect it to be tied, so that my own vote would be decisive. Hence, although the actual provision is a step function, my vote or my free riding must be based on some sense of the expected effect of my vote, and that must generally be minuscule for any election in a large electorate. With extremely high probability, my vote is likely to have no effect.