Electoral calculation

Some economists have decided that it is, after all, rational to vote in an election, even though the chances of your vote making any difference to the outcome are tiny. If I've understood this one correctly, they think it's rational on the basis that, tiny as that probability is, the payoff for the voter, thinking in a non-self-interested way, can be huge, made up as it would be of the benefits to the entire population of the country.

I don't buy it. At least, it doesn't make sense of why most rational voters actually vote. The chance of your vote determining the outcome is not just small; it is vanishingly small. It practically never happens that an electoral outcome turns on a single vote. Yet people go to the polling booths in large numbers, all the same. One reason why they might want to do so is to be part of the 'something bigger' that makes a difference for the better - a consideration particularly relevant, I would have thought, to the election about to take place on November 4. Another possible reason: many people are uncomfortable conducting themselves in a way that were their example to be generalized, the consequences for their community would be bad ones. If everyone supporting your favoured candidate or party were to stay home... well, that might indeed make a difference but of the wrong kind. So, you don't want to set a bad example.