Voter Knowledge/Ignorance

THE IMPORTANCE OF citizen knowledge—or cit-zens' lack thereof—has been contested throughout the history of modern democratic societies. Widespread lack of political knowledge was used to justify the limitation of voting rights in the United States and Britain to male property owners into the mid-19th century. Indirect elections for institutions such as the presidency and the U.S. Senate were held, and in the wake of the Civil War, literacy and understanding tests were imposed in the southern United States to disenfranchise African Americans and uneducated whites. This pessimistic view of political knowledge among the public stands in contrast to Alexis de Tocqueville's assessment that citizens (at least white males) during this period were actively engaged in, and knowledgeable about, political issues of the day.

The advent of the scientific study of public opinion in the United States and other democratic societies dispelled the Tocquevillean notion that the public were keenly aware of the details of political life. In the concluding chapter of their path-breaking study of the politics of Elmira, New York, Bernard Berelson and his Voting co-authors wrote, “The democratic citizen is expected to be well informed about political affairs … [Page 834][however] the voter falls short.” This view has generally been reinforced in more recent research, in that most citizens do not appear to live up to the democratic ideal of being highly informed about politics. Voter ignorance appears to be a constant feature of politics, despite societal changes—most notably, increases in literacy rates and formal education—that would be expected to produce higher political knowledge in the electorate.

Scholars following the rational choice approach in politics explain the lack of political knowledge in the electorate as being a result of “rational ignorance”: most voters derive little benefit from being better informed, and thus do not expend the effort to acquire additional knowledge about political issues or candidates. Voter knowledge appears to reflect, in part, the availability of information through the mass media; public knowledge of international political figures such as the United Nations secretary general appears to be higher in countries where print and electronic media emphasize international news, while such figures are more obscure in countries (like the United States) where regional and national news is deemed more important by media outlets. Voters also appear to respond to the demands placed on them by the political system; for example, voters' knowledge of parliamentary candidates' names in Britain dropped precipitously after party labels were added to general election ballots in the 1960s.

More recently, scholars' concerns have moved from questions about measurement to consideration of the consequences of low political knowledge in the electorate. This research has led to mixed conclusions. Some researchers, such as Larry Bartels and Scott Althaus, conclude that voter ignorance has important, systematic effects in electoral outcomes, while other researchers, such as Samuel Popkin, conclude that the differences between informed and uninformed voters are minimal, concluding that most voters' decisions are consistent with their likely “fully informed” preferences.

This debate has also entered popular political discourse, with liberal-leaning pundits and columnists attempting to understand high levels of Republican support among voters who presumably would have strong economic reasons for supporting the economic policies of the Democratic Party (less widely noticed, but also politically consequential, is widespread Democratic support among voters whose economic interests would suggest they would be Republican adherents). Pundits advancing these arguments suggest that much of this irrational behavior is due to a lack of knowledge or understanding of the economic consequences of their voting behavior, rather than reflecting a prioritization of social issues over attitudes about economic redistribution policy. Scholars who are particularly concerned about democratic ignorance have gone so far as to suggest that the current public opinion polling and campaign processes be replaced with (either mandatory or strongly encouraged) “deliberation days” to better reflect the “true” informed preferences of the public.

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