Voter Lottery

Where do these people come from? Voting is a privilege, not a crap shoot for some lucky player. It seems that a failed gubernatorial candidate in Arizona is proposing just that.

The Quick Pick ballot Published July 18, 2006 The big question in any election is, who won? In Arizona, though, the question soon might be, who won the million bucks? One lucky voter, chosen by lottery, would get $1 million just for voting, under a plan that will appear on the November ballot. The idea behind the Arizona Voter Reward Act is that people would be more inclined to vote if there was a chance they'd hit the jackpot. It's a pretty good bet. A second initiative, still awaiting certification by the Arizona board of elections, would require the state to mail ballots to all registered voters. If both measures passed, electing a governor in Arizona would be a lot like entering the Publishers Clearinghouse Sweepstakes. Just mail it back and hope you get lucky. The odds of winning depend, of course, on how many people vote. In the 2004 election, the odds would have been slightly less than 1 in 2 million in Arizona. If Illinois had a similar lottery, the odds would have been about 1 in 5.4 million. That's a lot better than the chances of winning the Illinois Lotto (1 in 10,179,260) or the multistate Powerball jackpot (1 in 146,107,962). You don't even have to invest a dollar. Then again, you can enter the lottery as many times as you want, an idea we don't want to plant in the heads of people who look at casting a ballot as a chance to win $1 million. Mark Osterloh, a one-time candidate for Arizona governor, says his Voter Reward initiative would get more ordinary citizens interested in politics. "Basically our government is elected by a small minority of citizens," Osterloh says. Well, maybe so. But he's talking about the small minority of citizens who care enough to get off the couch and do their civic duty, which includes forming an opinion about which candidate would make the best president, governor or dogcatcher. Nobody's stopping the rest of them from voting, but if they don't care enough to do it without being bribed, then who needs them? Improving voter turnout is a noble goal, but Osterloh's plan assumes these born-again voters would be casting thoughtful ballots. Chances are good that many of them would pick candidates the same way they pick lottery numbers: either at random or based on some combination of misguided statistical wizardry and superstition. When you're picking six numbers between 1 and 52, there's really no such thing as an informed choice. The odds of winning are the same. Of course, plenty of people think that applies to picking candidates too. All the more reason for them to stay home on Election Day.

H/T: American Diva