Foot voting is expressing one's preferences through one's actions, by voluntarily participating in or withdrawing from an activity, group, or process; especially, physical migration to leave a situation one does not like, or to move to a situation one regards as more beneficial. People who engage in foot voting are said to "vote with their feet". Legal scholar Ilya Somin has described foot voting as "a tool for enhancing political freedom: the ability of the people to choose the political regime under which they wish to live". Communist leader

Vladimir Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov ( 187021 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin, was a Russian revolutionary, politician and political theorist. He was the first head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 until Death and state funeral of ...

commented, "They voted with their feet," regarding Russian soldiers deserting the army of the

Tsar Tsar (; also spelled ''czar'', ''tzar'', or ''csar''; ; ; sr-Cyrl-Latn, цар, car) is a title historically used by Slavic monarchs. The term is derived from the Latin word '' caesar'', which was intended to mean ''emperor'' in the Euro ...

. The concept has also been associated with Charles Tiebout, who pioneered the concept (although he did not use the ''term'' "foot voting") in a 1956 paper, and with

Ronald Reagan Ronald Wilson Reagan (February 6, 1911 – June 5, 2004) was an American politician and actor who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He was a member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party a ...

, who advocated migration between states of the United States as a solution to unsatisfactory local conditions.

Law and politics

Legal scholar Ilya Somin has argued that foot voting requires far less information (on the part of the citizens engaging in it) to be exercised effectively than does literal voting at the ballot box; that foot voters are more strongly motivated to acquire relevant information than are ballot-box voters; and that decentralized federalism promotes the welfare of citizens because it facilitates foot voting. Somin has also used foot voting to make a case for changes in

international law International law, also known as public international law and the law of nations, is the set of Rule of law, rules, norms, Customary law, legal customs and standards that State (polity), states and other actors feel an obligation to, and generall ...

to allow easier

migration Migration, migratory, or migrate may refer to: Human migration * Human migration, physical movement by humans from one region to another ** International migration, when peoples cross state boundaries and stay in the host state for some minimum le ...

across international

border Borders are generally defined as geography, geographical boundaries, imposed either by features such as oceans and terrain, or by polity, political entities such as governments, sovereign states, federated states, and other administrative divisio ...

s. Legal scholars Roderick M. Hills, Jr., and Shitong Qiao have used China as a case study to argue that foot voting is ineffective unless meaningful ballot-box voting is also in place. Somin has rebutted this critique.

Culture

Models from theoretical biology have been applied to elucidate the causal relationships between foot voting and the dissemination of human cultural characteristics.

In popular culture

The popular fantasy author

Terry Pratchett Sir Terence David John Pratchett (28 April 1948 – 12 March 2015) was an English author, humorist, and Satire, satirist, best known for the ''Discworld'' series of 41 comic fantasy novels published between 1983 and 2015, and for the Apocalyp ...

shared a critical view of foot voting in his 1998 book Carpe Jugulum:

"I understand you've traveled, Agnes," said Vlad, as she struggled. "So you'll know that so many people lead little lives, always under the whip of some king or ruler or master who won't hesitate to sacrifice them in battle or turn them out when they can't work anymore." But they can run away, Perdita prompted. "But they can run away!" "Really? On foot? With a family? And no money? Mostly they never even try. Most people put up with most things, Agnes."

Examples

United States

One of the clearest examples of foot voting is the

Free State Project The Free State Project (FSP) is an American political migration movement founded in 2001 to recruit at least 20,000 libertarians to move to a single low-population state to make the state a stronghold for libertarian ideas. New Hampshire was s ...

. The Free State Project (FSP) is an American political migration movement founded in 2001 to recruit at least 20,000

libertarians Libertarianism (from ; or from ) is a political philosophy that holds freedom, personal sovereignty, and liberty as primary values. Many libertarians believe that the concept of freedom is in accord with the Non-Aggression Principle, according ...

to move to a single low-population state (

New Hampshire New Hampshire ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec t ...

, was selected in 2003) in order to make the state a stronghold for libertarian ideas. By concentrating on a single state rather than being dispersed over several states, libertarians have seen a lot of electoral wins in New Hampshire. For example, 150 representatives in the NH state house were ranked as an A− or above by the

New Hampshire Liberty Alliance The New Hampshire Liberty Alliance (NHLA) is a nonpartisan, libertarian coalition in New Hampshire. The organization supports libertarian candidates for state and local offices, and other libertarian causes and organizations. Just before the Nov ...

in 2021. As of March of 2022, approximately 6,232 participants have moved to New Hampshire for the Free State Project.

References