[EM] Election Day causes stress

[Michael Allan]

Dear Ted,

We might provide electoral systems (and methods) that provide support
for actual decision making, as opposed merely to expression.  The
design of our current systems rests on the assumption that the
electors can make a decision without voting amonst themselves, and
that voting is only useful for registering a decision that was
*already made*.  If this is assumption is false, then it would mean
that no decision was actually made by the electors prior to election
day, a situation that is likely to cause stress.

   Professor Waismel-Manor said he hoped to collaborate with American
   scholars "to provide the public and decision makers in Washington
   substantiated data that may or may not confirm that voting is
   indeed stressful, what causes this stress, ... [etc]."

If Professor Waismel-Manor is indeed correct that the decision makers
are in Washington and not in the public, then he may inadvertently
have stumbled upon the answer he seeks.

Other factors contributing to stress may be the absence of good
choices on the ballot, something electors have been known to complain
about, plus the futility of voting in elections in which one's vote
has no effect whatsoever.

-- 
Michael Allan

Toronto, +1 416-699-9528
http://zelea.com/


Ted Stern wrote:
> http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/08/science/voters-experience-stress-on-election-day-study-finds.html
> 
> I remember hearing about other studies showing that making difficult
> decisions "uses up" the energy and neurotransmitters required for will
> power.
> 
> So to bring this back on topic, I think we should be looking for
> methods that make voting decisions easier for the voter, because it
> will lead to better, less stressful decisions.
> 
> Ted
> -- 
> araucaria dot araucana at gmail dot com