The Swing Voter's Curse
发现信息不足的选民即使投票无成本也倾向于弃权，即“摇摆选民的诅咒”，并用1994年伊利诺伊州选举数据说明大量选民弃权的现象。
We analyze two-candidate elections in which some voters are uncertain about the realization of a state variable that affects the utility of all voters.. We demonstrate the existence of a swing voter's curse: less informed indifferent voters strictly prefer to abstain rather than vote for either candidate even when voting is costless. The swing voter's curse leads to the equilibrium result that a substantial fraction of the electorate will abstain even though all abstainers strictly prefer voting for one candidate over voting for another. In the 1994 State of Illinois elections there were 6,119,001 registered voters. Among those registered to vote only 3,106,566 voted in the gubernatorial race and only 2,144,200 voted on a proposed amendment to the state constitution. 1 There is nothing exceptional about the level of participation in the 1994 Illinois elections. As in most large elections in the United States, a substantial fraction of the registered electorate abstained from voting at all and of those who did vote a substantial fraction rolled off, i.e., did not vote on every item listed on the ballot. 2 While abstention and roll-off are ubiquitous features of elections together they pose a challenge to positive political theory. One obvious explanation of abstention is costs to vote.