<p>Voting is not cost free action even in absence of external obstacles. At the minimum you have to spend some time to walk to the poll.</p>
<p>Suppose, voting takes 30 min of your time rational person might have following set of preferences:</p>
<p>Watching episode of friends <span class="math-container">$\succ$</span> voting for candidate A <span class="math-container">$\succ$</span> voting for candidate B.</p>
<p>To be crystal clear, I am not saying abstaining might not be irrational in some situation, but even with 0 external obstacles there is always opportunity cost of your wasted time. Abstaining is just revealed preference for spending your time doing some other activity than voting.</p>
<p>This is also supported by empirical evidence which shows that bad weather suppresses voter turnout (<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1111/j.1468-2508.2007.00565.x" rel="noreferrer">Gomez et al 2007</a>), which is rational reaction as that increases cost of voting.  In this case simply the rational preferences might look like:</p>
<p>vote for candidate A and stay dry <span class="math-container">$\succ$</span> vote for candidate B and stay dry <span class="math-container">$\succ$</span> watching netflix <span class="math-container">$\succ$</span> vote for candidate A and get wet <span class="math-container">$\succ$</span> vote for candidate B and get wet.</p>
<p>If it is raining and thus your choice set is constrained to exclude vote for candidate A and stay dry, and vote for candidate B and stay dry, you choose to watch netflix. Nothing irrational about that choice in principle.</p>
<p>Abstaining from voting is simply not choosing nothing, it is choosing to spend your time doing different more preferred activities.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-12-20T18:12:17.710Z
2021-12-20T18:17:43.080Z
2021-12-20T18:17:43.080Z
1muflon1
<p>In order for a preference to be rational, it has to be transitive and complete. Complete preference means that any two different bundles can be compared. I.e., a consumer can weakly prefer bundle X over Y, Y over X or be indifferent between X and Y.</p>
<p>I guess one can argue people who don’t vote by choice are indifferent between the candidates, but practically that seems rare. My question then is whether electoral abstention(focusing on one not wanting to go and vote, ignoring any situations where one doesn’t vote due to external obstacles) constitutes non-complete preference? Can we then say that (most of) the people who intentionally do not vote aren’t able to compare the candidates in such a way as to make a decision on whom to choose?</p>
<p>If it is not non-complete, why isn't it? What could be an example of non-complete preference other than those stemming from lack of experience?</p>
<p>P.S. I’m not politicizing this, just wanting to analyse the phenomenon with economic theory. As a side note, this question has come up to me from thinking about politics in countries with short electoral history and abstention there.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-12-21T19:28:34.183Z
Did you mean [abstinence](https://www.google.com/search?q=abstinence+meaning&rlz=1C1ONGR_en-GBGB927GB927&oq=abstinence&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j0i433i512j0i512l3j46i175i199i512j0i512j69i60.4798j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8) or [abstention](https://www.google.com/search?q=abstention+meaning&rlz=1C1ONGR_en-GBGB927GB927&oq=absteb&aqs=chrome.2.69i57j0i10i433j0i10l2j46i10j0i10l5.3449j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8)?
Adam Bailey
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-12-21T21:42:17.160Z
@AdamBailey Corrected. Thank you!
cc88
<consumer-theory><preferences>
Is electoral abstention an example of non-complete preference?
cc88
# Is electoral abstention an example of non-complete preference?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2021-12-20)

In order for a preference to be rational, it has to be transitive and complete. Complete preference means that any two different bundles can be compared. I.e., a consumer can weakly prefer bundle X over Y, Y over X or be indifferent between X and Y.

I guess one can argue people who don’t vote by choice are indifferent between the candidates, but practically that seems rare. My question then is whether electoral abstention(focusing on one not wanting to go and vote, ignoring any situations where one doesn’t vote due to external obstacles) constitutes non-complete preference? Can we then say that (most of) the people who intentionally do not vote aren’t able to compare the candidates in such a way as to make a decision on whom to choose?

If it is not non-complete, why isn't it? What could be an example of non-complete preference other than those stemming from lack of experience?

P.S. I’m not politicizing this, just wanting to analyse the phenomenon with economic theory. As a side note, this question has come up to me from thinking about politics in countries with short electoral history and abstention there.

**Tags:** consumer-theory, preferences

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: Did you mean [abstinence](https://www.google.com/search?q=abstinence+meaning&rlz=1C1ONGR_en-GBGB927GB927&oq=abstinence&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j0i433i512j0i512l3j46i175i199i512j0i512j69i60.4798j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8) or [abstention](https://www.google.com/search?q=abstention+meaning&rlz=1C1ONGR_en-GBGB927GB927&oq=absteb&aqs=chrome.2.69i57j0i10i433j0i10l2j46i10j0i10l5.3449j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8)?  
> **username_0**: @username_1 Corrected. Thank you!  

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## 1 answers

### Answer by username_2 on 2021-12-20. Score: 5 | Accepted answer

Voting is not cost free action even in absence of external obstacles. At the minimum you have to spend some time to walk to the poll.

Suppose, voting takes 30 min of your time rational person might have following set of preferences:

Watching episode of friends $\succ$ voting for candidate A $\succ$ voting for candidate B.

To be crystal clear, I am not saying abstaining might not be irrational in some situation, but even with 0 external obstacles there is always opportunity cost of your wasted time. Abstaining is just revealed preference for spending your time doing some other activity than voting.

This is also supported by empirical evidence which shows that bad weather suppresses voter turnout ([Gomez et al 2007](https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1111/j.1468-2508.2007.00565.x)), which is rational reaction as that increases cost of voting. In this case simply the rational preferences might look like:

vote for candidate A and stay dry $\succ$ vote for candidate B and stay dry $\succ$ watching netflix $\succ$ vote for candidate A and get wet $\succ$ vote for candidate B and get wet.

If it is raining and thus your choice set is constrained to exclude vote for candidate A and stay dry, and vote for candidate B and stay dry, you choose to watch netflix. Nothing irrational about that choice in principle.

Abstaining from voting is simply not choosing nothing, it is choosing to spend your time doing different more preferred activities.


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