Everyone is pretty sure that we vote for candidates based on rational decision-making. But the research says we're not rational. Instead, we are rationalizers. We hunt and sift for good sounding reasons for our decisions after we've already made them.

That sounds about right to me. Researcher Richard Lau says that the real reasons for choosing as we do are:

1. The candidate shares our biases.
   
2. Our neighbors say nice things about them.  

According to Lau, who's coauthor of How Voters Decide: Information Processing in Election Campaigns, what doesn't sway people are policy analyses or arguments.

What's more, "the people who look at the most information. . . are not necessarily the people who are going to best be able to determine which candidate is best for them. Really, people often do better with little information than with a lot of information."

Who knew?  

If you're voting Tuesday, chances are you fall into one of these voting types:

1. Fast and frugal (the one issue voter)
2. Cognitive miser (looks for cue words and goes with them)
3. Rational (try to learn as much as possible)
4. Confirmatory (you already know you're going to like the liberal or conservative candidate better).
   

You'll have to read the article if you want to find out why "less information is more." But I'll use the advice for my endorsement:

Vote yes for the fire station. We need it, it's cheaper now than it will be later, and Dean Redman is an upright kinda guy who wouldn't steer us wrong.

As for the mayoral candidates, you've already known for a long time who you were going to vote for, haven't you? 

Needing a new fire station and wanting a new fire station may be two very separate things. That we need a new fire station is pretty clear to me, based on the data that have been presented, checked, and presented again. The endless squabbles that have gotten in the way pretty much boil down to:

• Where will it be?
  
• How stripped down a place can we get away with?

But now the when and if are creeping back into the discussion. Blogger Tom Gaertner, for one, is fed up with the Council dragging their feet, this time by putting off placing the question before the voters as a binding referendum. He's too polite to tell you, but I'm not: voting against were Alders Birschel, Didier, Donegan, Ewerdt, and Hanson: Minnear, Herzog, and Krill were not present. The rest voted aye.

I asked Tom whether a referendum was required. If not, solid leadership and personal bravery would let the Council do the right thing right away. That would be to build a new fire house good enough and big enough to last for at least 50 years. I don't want to think what a "do-over" in 20 years will cost if we don't do it right this time.

While I still don't know the answer to whether this question must go to referendum, Fire Chief Dean Redman sent me a note with his perspective that it should:

"I would welcome updated comments since the public input has been limited.  It is hard to know what that means.  Does the public not support the need and are just waiting to vote it down, or do they accept the need and are waiting to support it?  The real way to find out is to have it on the ballot."