Electorate

For obvious reasons my vote didn’t count. The genuine election took place soon afterwards, and the result was what everyone predicted.

Two interesting observations, however, were hotly discussed afterwards – from the morning paper to our lunch table:

1. Why did so many people suddenly become fans of the wolf (including previous supporters of the pig, as well as many of the representatives of our own profession)?
2. Why did most of the electorates speak out for whom they vote?

The gem is, the two questions are actually different manifestations of the same problem.

Don’t you comprehend? It goes like this: The game at hand is a positive reinforcement exercise. If one of the candidates will clearly win, and if the choice of an electorate is not without consequence (which may either be positive – some may want to become a government secretary or bid for a good piece of land – or negative – that is, to avoid some less than favorable happenings after autumn), it is natural to vote for the winner. In other words, an electorate does not vote for a candidate that they want, but for someone whom they believe would win.

In that case, the inevitable problem to follow is: How could electorates tell the winner that they have voted desirably?

Alas, that’s why they have to speak it out!