August 21, 2014 2:24PM # L.A. Considers Giving Away Lottery Tickets To Encourage Voting By [Walter Olson](https://www.cato.org/people/walter-olson) --- SHARE Concerned about low voter turnout, the Los Angeles Ethics Commission has floated the idea of using “financial incentives, such as a lottery system” to lure the apathetic to the polls. The *Los Angeles Times* [has the details](http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-panel-prizes-voters-20140814-story.html), while columnist Debra Saunders weighs in with critical commentary [here](http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/saunders/article/L-A-s-idea-of-using-a-lottery-to-entice-voters-5701822.php?cmpid=fb-desktop) and [here](http://blog.sfgate.com/djsaunders/2014/08/20/greasing-the-ballot-box/). From Saunders’s second post: > Total prize money is expected to be $100,000, or 1 percent of the $10 mil Los Angeles spent on public financing last year. … While the commission was thinking of giving away 100 $1,000 prizes, \[City Councilman Herb\] Wesson suggested that the panel consider a bigger takeaway — say a $50,000 prize, and two for $25,000. The measure hasn’t even made it to a City Council vote, and already politicians are trying to figure out how to fatten the prize. Lottery tickets, paying off in other people’s money, as a reward for voting. That’s a perfect metaphor for the political process, isn’t it? ##### Related Tags [Government and Politics](https://www.cato.org/government-politics) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).