Freakonomics: Election Day

excellent book, great blog: http://www.freakonomics.com/blog/

But if you really do want higher voter turnout, there are at least three things that could help: pay people to vote (even if the payment is in the form of a lottery ticket); make voting mandatory, as it is in Australia; or—and this would be an interesting, albeit impossible, experiment—forbid anyone from conducting and publicizing pre-election polls. If you don’t know the likely outcome of an election, would you be more willing to vote? I am guessing the answer is a big fat yes. When we get bombarded with poll numbers, supporters of the leading candidates are disinclined to vote because the victory seems in the bag; and supporters of the trailing candidate are disinclined because defeat seems inevitable.