Spatial Uncertainty and Electoral Turnout.

Current formal models of elections assume that voters perfectly know their ideal points in the electoral dimensions. In this paper I show that this assumption violates the empirical evidence and outline a model with very attractive implications that avoids it. In particular, this paper focuses on the elegance with which this model accommodates abstention due to alienation. In this model abstention due to spatial competition is just a result of indifference and utility maximization. So-called abstention due to alienation is here just a result of the differential utility between candidates being too small to overcome the costs of voting. Satisfying strategies of the voters are therefore not required and abstention is completely accounted for in a well justified model fully consistent with rational choice theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]