[bjhoops1]

Interesting observation. I completely agree that as the amount of information needed to be synthesized to understand any issue multiplies exponentially, the capacity of an individual voter to grasp all of the necessary information is quickly exceeded. So people resort to shortcuts, voting based off of quick proxies for true discernment such as party affiliation or ideology.

I would even say that ideology can be considered as little more than a shortcut, a cache if you will of information and answers to tricky problems. Unfortunately, most people's "cache" never actually expires and they go to their grave still holding to hopelessly outdated data.