Social Accountability, maybe there is another explanation?

I’ve been meaning to write this post for a few days regarding Mutz’s Hearing the Other Side. While her evidence is strong regarding conflict-avoidance and non-conflict-avoidance being influenced to vote or not to vote at all, I’m not sure I believe that social accountability would play a role in deciding whether or not to vote. We discussed this a little bit in class, but voting is a private act. When you go into the booth, no one sees how you voted. Therefore, no one knows if you are lying or not lying when you say you voted, did not vote, or if you say you voted for one candidate or another. I understand her logic that conflict-avoidant people might not vote so as not to be in opposition to friends or family, but I do not think that it is true. However, I have no evidence anecdotal or otherwise to support my refutation of her claim. In class we brought up the idea that conflict-avoidant people may also choose to vote for the same reasons that Mutz states that they would not vote. If a conflict-avoidant person has a densely Democratic or Republican social network, they may be compelled to vote for the candidate that the majority of their network would vote for. Also, if a conflict-avoidant person has politically active friends, even if they are mixed in their views, not voting may cause more conflict than voting for an oppositional party.

I wonder if there may be another factor that involved that would explain the data she presents on conflict- and non-conflict-avoidant people. Perhaps instead we could think of easily-influenced versus non-easily-influenced people. For example, those more open to suggestion or more easily swayed may be more confused by mixed information and oppositional views than people more steadfast in their views. They may also be more likely to vote for the same party as the majority of their network. Or they may be less likely to vote if they are in a network of people who also typically do not vote, with this decreased likelihood of voting being more pronounced than for non-easily influenced people. Ease of influence, though I have not data, may prove to be just as relevant to the issue at hand as conflict avoidance, and may explain the same propensity to vote or not to vote.