This note attempts to explain how unorganized, passive, ill-informed voters collectively influence policy choice without expressing policy preferences. In our theorizing about democracy we have thought too exclusively of the voter as choosing between candidates and parties according to his policy preferences, like a consumer choosing between alternative sets of products. Consequently we have too often assumed that the electorate must somehow discriminate between proposed policy alternatives in order to influence policy choice. 1 Toward a broader theory of voter influence, we shall treat actual policy decisions as governmental inputs into the voter's environment that, together with his own choices, affect his ex post utility.2 In this model, voters greatly economize their political efforts by voting to remove a government whenever they become dissatisfied with the utility changes they attribute to it; voters judge performance without understanding the