Beware the Perils of the Protest Vote, Writes Dan Stone

Writing in a Portland Press Herald opinion column, Stone conjured up an imaginary voter called Johnny, who "can't stand" Donald Trump but is "not crazy" about Kamala Harris either. Johnny decides either to vote for a third party candidate or to abstain from voting altogether.

"Johnny's inclination to cast a 'protest vote' (or nonvote) sounds reasonable, but is it?" asked Stone, "Johnny's vote is extremely unlikely to swing the outcome. Why shouldn't he then just protest vote if that feels right to him?"

Stone asks us to suppose there are 10,000 "Johnny voters" in his state who all are unsatisfied with Harris but hate Trump. This bloc, he explained, could well swing the state's electoral outcome. "Trump likely has an edge of 5,000 votes among the state's other voters, so if the 10,000 Johnny voters all vote for Harris, she wins. If the 10,000 Johnny voters all protest vote or abstain, Harris loses. Since Johnny dislikes Trump more than Harris," Stone continued, "he wants the 10,000 Johnny voter bloc to not protest and vote for Harris. If Johnny believes in the golden rule-and most of us do -and if he thinks the other Johnny voters should vote for Harris, then Johnny should do the same thing himself," he wrote.

"So why wouldn't Johnny do this? Why might his intuition lead him astray here? Why might he, and others, have a protest vote bias, a tendency to protest vote when they shouldn't, according to their own values?" asked Stone, whose areas of expertise include behavioral economics.

He went on to outline several cognitive biases that can affect voter behavior, including a so-called boycott heuristic, a rule-of-thumb that prompts people to boycott things they don't like even when boycotts are ineffective.

Another bias to consider, said Stone in an observation shared via email after the article was published, would be "perfectionism bias"-which he describes as an aversion to choosing the best option because it's imperfect. "This is known as letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. In some settings, shooting for perfection makes sense," explained Stone. "For example, if you're planning next summer's vacation now and you have months to make a decision, it is likely best to take your time and try to find the ideal place to go. But when there are only two feasible options, refusing to choose one because it's imperfect would be a mistake."

Stone concluded his op-ed by pointing out that on January 21, 2025, the US will have a new president, and it will be either Harris or Trump. "A third party is not a real option." Anyone who feels tempted to opt out of this binary choice, said Stone, should make sure their decision isn't driven by one of the cognitive biases he has described.

Stone is the author of Undue Hate: A Behavioral Economic Analysis of Hostile Polarization in US Politics and Beyond (MIT Press, 2023).