Voting as spending? How much is a vote worth?

Spending votes is like spending money? Maybe...

Voting is about getting the most value you can from a fixed supply of votes (and voting power).

Voting is resource which people have and are able to use in order to get something in return.

In the political system the votes are used to "buy" certain policies.
Politicians promise to implement certain policies in exchange for votes.

The cost of a vote is based on what other people are willing to do to buy or earn it.

Steem is what I like to call "dangerously transparent". It's an experiment where the votes (spending patterns) are available for public scrutiny.

It is very difficult to reach a true agreement on how to spend resources using this model. Notoriously difficult in fact.

In the political world voting is about distributing power in society. The power in theory rests with the voters which means the votes are the ultimate currency of political society. Those votes have to be kept secret in order to prevent coerced elections. The more important the stakes, the more likely coercion is to take control of the process, which is why coercion resistance is so important. Secret ballot traditionally has been a means of achieving this coercion resistance.

Votes are not free

Politicians and entities which want our vote should have to provide some product or service worthy of spending our votes to buy. If we merely vote for a politician out of "political loyalty" then does our vote have any value in this instance? If they know that we have to vote for them or their party no matter what the policy then why would they have to earn or buy our votes anymore? They can essentially do whatever they decide without having any fear that our votes could go somewhere else.

In a market, a true "free market", the votes should be able to go where the best policies are? In that case political loyalty makes as much sense as brand loyalty.