Different ways people vote

What kind of voter are you? David Redlawsk, a political science professor from the University of Iowa, researched how people make their decision on how to vote.

He identified four types of voters: rational, intuitive, fast and frugal, and confirmative. Of course, there are many other methods in which people decide who to vote for, but this is one perspective.

The rational voter is the one who gathers as much information as possible, gets it from various sources, different viewpoints, adjusts for biases, and then makes a decision based on their value system.

The intuitive voter doesn’t have all the time in the world, so they do research up to a point. For example, they will choose a random candidate to study, and if that candidate meets several of their values, they might not research any other.

The fast and frugal voter chooses a few issues that they feel are important and compares them to the other candidates on the ballot, to see how they line up.

And then the confirmative voter is the one who votes party line, and whatever the party line is they will vote that way.

All elections are different. Now that Alaska is going to be using Ranked Choice Voting, we will see many changes in our voting procedures. In August of 2022, we will have an open Primary. The new change for this Primary will be that all voters will get the same ballot. We might be seeing more voters take on a “rational” approach to their voting method. (The August Primary will take the top four vote getters for each office, and then they will move on to the general election, where the ranked choice method will be used when voting.)

But no matter where you lie on the voting spectrum, your vote counts and voting helps Democracy move forward.

Alex Koplin

Kenai Peninsula Votes