What drives people to vote, self-interest or altruism?

[BridgeTheGap]

From: Care to Vote // Utne.com
The most crucial factor in determining whether people vote isn’t self-interest—as most Intro Poli-Sci courses would have us believe—but altruism. Greater Good reports on recent research showing that a focus on helping others is “even more influential than people’s age, income, or education level” when it comes to making it to the ballot booth. So what does this mean for 2008 presidential hopefuls or organizations working to increase voter turnout?

It means they’ll have to learn how to make people give a damn... about other people. Campaigners may want to take heed of the findings, discovered in separate studies by political science professors Richard Jankowski of the State University of New York, Fredonia, and James Fowler of the University of California, San Francisco. Jankowski, for instance, tells Greater Good that get-out-the-vote campaigns “can have a small effect.... But on the whole, I don’t see them having much effect until we get at the root cause of what drives people to get politically involved.” So here’s our challenge: Get citizens to see the altruistic potential of politics. —Anna Cynar

http://www.utne.com/2007-11-09/Politics/Care-to-Vote.aspx

http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/greatergood/current_issue/Marsh.html

[acmavm]

1. BOTH! I want my candidate to win because he's the one I know

is best to hold whatever position he's running for and I also vote because unless we do, we can't claim any right to have our positions spoken for in Washington. This is a government (supposedly) of the people, for the people, and by the people. You can't have any of that unless you keep up your end of the bargain, although lately both parties have been more or less telling the American public to kiss off.

[ecstatic]

2. duty and/or patriotism

I doubt many people still actually believe their vote counts and/or will change things.