Consider an election in which all the choices are dismal, albeit some perhaps even more dismal than others. How should voters in such an election choose whom to vote for or whether or not to vote?

It has been suggested (Riker and Ordeshook, 1973; cf. Weisberg and Grofman, 1981) that a voter is unlikely to vote if no choice exists whose election would yield him any appreciable degree of delight. Such a voter is alienated from the system. Consider, now, an election whose outcome is virtually certain. The conventional wisdom is that such certainty as to outcome should depress turnout, since ceteris paribus, voters who come to see their vote as making no difference should be less likely to vote than when they saw themselves as having a chance, however remote, to influence the outcome.