Is Internet Voting a Good Thing?

Allowing voters to vote on the internet, reduces the costs of voting. This paper shows that, on occasion, such a cost reduction may make all citizens worse off. We present a simple graphical method for analysing equilibria of voting games with costly participation. We then apply the method to find the welfare effects of a reduction in voting costs. Such a reduction is sometimes harmful because theresulting increase in participation rates reduces the influence of voters with low voting costs. Ex ante, when citizens do not yet know their voting costs, the negative effect may outweigh the positive effects.