Abstract

The “calculus of voting” is the rational-choice based theory of turnout and vote choice that has been at the base of the choice-theoretic studies of campaigns and elections since its first formal statement by Downs (1957) and especially by Riker and Ordeshook (1968). Perhaps because of its initial formal results about turnout that are ordinarily understood to be both pessimistic and empirically wrong, a number of years passed with relatively little theoretical advancement, while theories of voting, political parties, and campaigns and elections developed, often with little to no attention to the voters’ calculus.