I profoundly agree and note that voting (at least in any reasonably-sized electorate) is an inherently irrational act, and so the barrier to good judgment is hi

I profoundly agree and note that voting (at least in any reasonably-sized electorate) is an inherently irrational act, and so the barrier to good judgment is high. It's inherently irrational because one's vote will almost certainly never decide an election. Everyone intuits this fact. Even though they may consider themselves to be performing a civic duty, they will always be subject to s host of other reasons for voting as they do, reasons other than pure consequentialist thinking.