NYU Democracy Project Article on How to “Strengthen Democracy by Empowering People to Vote with their Feet”

Today, the NYU Democracy Project published my article “Strengthen Democracy by Empowering People to Vote with their Feet.” It is part of their “100 Ideas in 100 Days” series presenting a wide range of viewpoints on how to address challenges facing American democracy. Here are some excerpts:

A specter is haunting American democracy: widespread voter ignorance. The specter is not a new one, by any means. But it is exacerbated by growing political polarization, which has accentuated the tendency of many voters to be highly biased in evaluating the information they do know. The problem of political ignorance is closely linked to another shortcoming of the ballot box: the near-powerlessness of the individual voter, who has only an infinitesimally small chance of affecting policy. There is no easy solution to these interlinked challenges. But they can be mitigated by empowering people to make more decisions by “voting with their feet,” instead of at the ballot box.

Decades of survey data…. show that most voters often don’t know even basic facts about government and public policy, such as the names of the three branches of government (most polls find less than half of adults can name all three), which officials are responsible for which issues, or the biggest expenditure items in the federal budget. Many studies also show that most voters often do a poor job of evaluating the political information they do learn…. This terrible state of affairs is not the result of stupidity or lack of information, but of generally rational behavior on the part of most voters: a combination of “rational ignorance” (lack of incentive to seek out political information) and “rational irrationality” (lack of incentive to engage in unbiased evaluation)….

While ignorance and bias have been a particularly severe problem on the right in recent years, they are not limited to any one side of the political spectrum. There is plenty of ignorance and bias among left-wing voters, as well…

There is no simple solution to the twin problems of political ignorance and the powerlessness of individual voters. But one that has great potential is empowering people to “vote with their feet.” People can vote with their feet between jurisdictions in a federal system, choosing which government policies they wish to live under. They can also do so through international migration….. Foot voting can also occur in the private sector, when people use it to provide services traditionally associated with state and local governments. When people vote with their feet, they make individually decisive choices, not ones that have almost no chance of making a difference. For that very reason, foot voters generally seek out more information and do a better job of evaluating it than ballot box voters. If you are like most people, you probably spent more time seeking out evidence the last time you decided what television set to buy than the last time you decided who to vote for in any election. That’s because the decision about the TV set is one that has a high chance of being decisive, while that at the ballot box has almost no chance…..

There is much that can be done to enhance foot voting opportunities. Decentralizing more functions of government to the state and local level would create more space for policy diversity on a variety of issues and open up more opportunities for foot voting. In recent years, mobility has decreased due to widespread exclusionary zoning, which has made it difficult or impossible to build new housing in response to demand in many places where Americans would like to move – especially the poor and disadvantaged. We can break down that barrier by ending exclusionary zoning, or at least curtailing it through a combination of litigation and political action.

We can also enhance foot voting by leaving more issues to the private sector. Foot voting between private sector organizations – such as private planned communities – can enhance choice and lower moving costs, even as compared to foot voting between jurisdictions in a federal system. Limiting the scope of government can also mitigate political ignorance by reducing the range of issues rationally ignorant voters have to pay attention to, thereby ensuring that their limited knowledge is not so overstressed.

Finally, we can expand foot voting and political freedom by breaking down barriers to international migration, thereby enabling millions more people to escape poverty and oppression…..

I develop many of these ideas in greater detail in my book Free to Move: Foot Voting, Migration, and Political Freedom.

The other essays in the 100 ideas series can be found at the Democracy Project website. Contributors include a wide range of experts in various disciplines, and a with a wide range of viewpoints.