Explain the significance of voting with suitable examples

Answer 1

Most choices about private goods need not have winning and losing sides. Markets allow people who prefer black shoes to have their choice and allow those who prefer other colors to get what they want. The differences that people settle by voting will more often involve public goods or decisions that, unlike shoe color, are not divisible. At any given time the United States can only have one president and an army of only one size. Voting governs our activities in only a few areas, such as governments and associations like clubs and labor unions. In addition, corporate shareholders vote for boards of directors and are sometimes asked to approve other actions like mergers. Very few everyday decisions are the result of voting. Such important institutions as families, churches, and schools make most of their decisions administratively, without any votes of approval from those whom their policies will affect most heavily. Employees voluntarily put themselves under the control of supervisors who have some dictatorial power over their assignments and their pay. There are limits on supervisory powers, some set by law (e.g., discrimination, assignment to hazardous tasks) and others by local customs. Workers also have the sometimes costly option of quitting.

Even if voting is so desirable, it governs so few of our activities because of some difficulties. Seemingly clear concepts like "society's preference" turn out to have little meaning—depending on the details, any voting process can at times be manipulated to ensure that some particular outcome happens. And no voting process is strategy-proof voters may have good reason to misrepresent their actual beliefs at the ballot box, so the results of a vote may not be a truthful summary of their preferences.