The paradox of voting, also called Downs paradox, is that for a rational, self-interested voter, the costs of voting will normally exceed the expected benefits.

Under conditions of strategy (rational voters wishing to obtain the best outcome for themselves with perfect knowledge of how all other voters will vote) a rating ballot with more than 2 rating points should become identical to an Approval ballot with all candidates being given either the highest or lowest rating.

And in doing so he gave Russia time - time to catch its breath so that its people could start to behave like rational voters.

Won't rational voters simply choose politicians who promise to serve their interests?

In the UK we are not rational voters, we are tribal until those who lead the tribe brought shame upon it.

The hypothesis of Mimetic Convergence supports the Downsian interpretation that in general, rational voters converge in the direction of uniform positions in most thematic dimensions.

Receiving only one vote, the rational voter must only vote for a candidate that has a chance of winning, but will not win by too great a margin, thus taking votes away from party colleagues.

The political right in the US recently scored big points in an election - turning the clock back a few decades in scientific terms - by persuading the slightly more rational voters to lose hope and stay home on election day.

He argues democracy is efficient based on the premise of rational voters, competitive elections, and relatively low political transactions costs.