"Informed Voters"

Many people who have communicated with me over the past few months have heard my rant against the entire discipline of political science, particularly when it goes around masquerading as a social science. I do think that math has a place in the study of "politics," per se, but it should NOT become the foundation for models, like it would be in a hard science, or even psychology.

I strongly dislike the pundit class, too. There is way too little humility in the whole spectrum of the study of politics, from the idiotic punditry (most people on TV) to the arrogant political scientists.

There are, however, good political scientists who work to understand the system, rather than to define the system. Likewise, there are intelligent analysts of politics who use critical thinking, logic, and math to make their determinations. More on this at a future date.

Today, though, I wanted to offer my assent to a definition bandied about by some political scientists: what constitutes an informed voter?

I will put forward my own definition:

A validly informed voter is one who is aware of the two-party nature of the American system and knows the name and/or political party of the incumbent.

Every election, then, can be pretty simply a referendum on the state of the nation. Are you happy with the way things are? Vote for the current party! Unhappy? Vote them out!

Now, to me, this is the most acceptable definition of an informed voter, because most other definitions of "informed voters" would pretty much entirely include heavy partisans as informed. In my experience, there are very few legitimately politically aware and active people who do not have certain policy preferences and preconceptions that put them on one side of the aisle or the other. (I, for instance, trend to the Republican side, even with some policy preferences that disagree.)

So, let's say we have a room full of people of different political beliefs. I'll define the room.

10 die-hard conservatives
10 Republican-leaning, politically active people
5 people with odd policy preferences who follow politics
10 die-hard liberals
10 Democratically-leaning, politically active people
5 people who know nothing about politics and would struggle to identify the vice president
50 people with limited information who watch the news

A more selective informed voter definition would say that 45 of those ppl are "informed voters." So what, though? Their research and information has no impact on themselves. They're conservative or liberal. They probably get their news from news sources that tend to validate what they believe (Rush Limbaugh, MSNBC). They're not going to change their mind, or vote for the other party's candidate. So, they're well-informed, but so what?

Read over a DailyKos thread. You'll probably get 40 people with great information and strong opinions. All 40 of those people are going to vote for Obama no matter what. So why do they matter? Information has no impact on their vote. Likewise, do the same at, say, RedState. You might get a few random protest voters, but the VAST majority of those people will cast ballots for McCain. Changing information does not change their vote. So why are these people credited as being "informed," in a political sense?

No, being truly "informed" is someone who takes new information and allows it to change their mind. And those people are the ones who are willing to vote for either party. In a way, they are better informed than those who have already decided... because they actually respond to information.

Now, there's nothing wrong with being a partisan, and I'm doing a bit of exaggeration to prove a point. But to me, an informed voter is anyone who looks around them, knows who is in power, knows who is not in power, and makes a decision. Lots of people qualify. Is it the best? No, of course not. Media bias hurts, as do sound bites, and the whole world around that type of talking-head analysis (for example, an economist's definition of "recession," two quarters of negative growth, has not occurred, and yet the media has whipped up a recession frenzy. The economy is bad, no doubt, but it's a misnomer to use that term loosely.) But all things considered, I think that's the best way to describe "informed."