NP: Band of Horses, Infinite Arms

Andrew Sullivan flags a study that asks people why they voted, and then follows up with some interesting responses to that post. First, a litany of complaints on the focus on national elections, and second, a link to Andrew Sprung, who compares voting to prayer.

Oddly enough, I think the latter helps explain the former, especially in the context of the youth vote for the midterms not being anywhere near what it was for the presidential election, although it was only off of the last midterm election by a couple of percentage points.

The authors of the study talk about "extrinsic benefits from voting that are unrelated to the chances that their vote will actually matter," but I think they miss an important one. Voting makes you feel like you're a part of something larger. In the case of, say, voting for the first black president, something absolutely massive. It's sort of a big deal whether you support Obama or not.

For first-time voters, in particular, how do you reconcile voting for a state representative and half of your Senate delegation with that bigness? Extending Sprung's religious idea, it's like celebrating Christmas versus celebrating Easter (or maybe the Epiphany). They both should be on somewhat equal footing, but the reality is that one outweighs the other by a lot in practice.

I don't really have an answer to that question. And I'm not touching turnout for, say, primaries for midterm elections. I think it's just a maturation process where you come to realize that the local stuff is important, and maybe you're not.