Information, Electoral Equilibria, and the Democratic Ideal

Abstract

A considerable literature argues that poor information among voters produces an elitist or class bias in public policy. Owing to the complexity of public issues and their generally slight impact on outcomes, citizens fail to invest in information, and in their voting decisions rely instead on cues such as party labels, the opinions of friends, and interest group endorsements. As a result, political entrepreneurs are unable to mobilize effectively the general electorate to vote in their own self-interest. This essay takes issue with some theoretical premises of this argument. Using a rational expectations approach to modeling elections with incomplete information, we show first that citizens require only very general information to vote correctly. Second, this information can be deduced from exactly those cues that are commonly interpreted as substitutes for "voting on the issues." Finally, even if interest groups attempt to influence candidate positions with money, equilibria exist to the election game that are identical to what occurs under full information, provided some strong symmetry conditions hold with regards to the resources of such groups. Thus, popular control of public policy is not precluded per se by lower levels of voter information about the candidates' positions on issues.