This is going to draw some flak, but I've been thinking about it for a while now.

I don't think that American voters are informed enough about America, the candidates they're voting for, or even the English language to be able to make an informed and valid decision as to who should run our government. People just don't seem to be able to answer very basic questions about their country and their world. And I'm not just talking about stuff like Jaywalking, I'm talking about serious polls.

http://english.pravda.ru/main/2002/11/21/39769.html (Yes, it's Pravda. I'm a Communist and I want to eat your baby.)
http://idsnews.com/story.php?id=11507
http://idsnews.com/story.php?id=16260


People in America just aren't informed. If they don't know something so incredibly basic as where Israel is, are they really fit to make a decision about our policy on Israel? Here's my question: should there be standards for if people should be able to vote or not?


I say yes (gasp!). I think that the bare minimum for being able to vote should be:

1.) A history test at least as hard as the US Citizenship test, but I'd prefer harder.

2.) A test of the opinions of the major party candidates (determining what major party would be would be left up to the states.)

3.) An English test at least as hard as that which US citizens have to take.

4.) A geography test that would force you to identify basic landmasses (continents, oceans, ect,) some US states and important countries/regions (i.e. Israel, Iraq, France, the Balkans).

5.) A basic overview of current events (maybe.)


I know that tests like this have been used to exclude certain ethnic groups, and I know that certain groups still suffer a disadvantage, and that's shameful. However, I think the best way to correct these problems is to have a more intelligent voting body. So, what do you think?

1. History is poorly taught, so it would require years of improvements in our schools before this is valid.
2. They lie, so how can we know their true opinions.
3. does this matter?
4. ditto
5. the media lies, or is fed crap by the politicians, so how can this help?

No tests...no way, no how. As far as I'm concerned, if you're 18 you can vote. Further, I'd like to add that voting rights should never, ever be taken away regardless of how many and what crimes someone may have committed. Also, I think it would be a great idea to do two things regarding voting. First, make Election Day a national holiday so that businesses can close and people will have more time to get out and vote. Second, and this is a little more radical, require all eligible voters to vote. Make it a federal law that not voting will result in a fine. Now, I realize the logistical problems associated with this such as there not being enough time and/or space to get this done, so I think that voting should start a month before Election Day so that people can vote early and not be rushed to do it at the last minute. And if a person doesn't want to vote because they feel there is no one worth voting for, create a space on a ballot for a null vote and count all of those in the final results as well. The total amount of null votes should be just as important as the votes that went toward candidates.

I think instituting anything of that nature would get extremely hairy it would also disqualify (particularly if all the things you listed) a majority of the country from voting AND at that point politicians would simply target those groups that typically could vote under those guidelines. POOR idea i think.

However, I do agree that people are largely uninformed about the world and history and that steps should be taken to inform voters. That's why I voted the 2nd no.

As to the comment that history is poorly taught, I think sometimes thats less the case than lack of interest on the part of the pupils.

I agree with most of your post, Nu Marx, but I think that the huge number of moronic voters who can't tell you who George Washington was and how many states there are in the Union are hurting our political landscape. People who are uninformed are too easily persuaded by stupid reasons from political commercials and news soundbites.




Doesn't that scare you? That such simple questions would keep people from voting?



If we had a more informed populace, or at least more informed voters, then we wouldn't have to deal with stuff like that.

Yes indeed it does.

At the same time when you start placing restrictions on who can and cannot vote you run into some major problems.

Technically the electorial college was put in place for the very reasons you complain of here but if anybody ever attempted to use it (ie:vote differently by state than the majority vote had decided) by gosh they'd get some serious hell to pay from the voters (or so I assume). The electorial college was originally intended to be a safety net for what our founding fathers thought was a possibly uninformed or uneducated public that may or may not have been capable of picking correctly in the polls.

Today with TV and the internet there SHOULD be less of a problem with uninformed voters than in colonial times, but whether this is the case or not I can't say. My guess is people took the time to BE informed and seek information more then. Whereas, people now largely depend on news briefs. Anyway, theres been talk in past years of ditching the electorial college all together saying its a relic of the past and unnecessary now...are you suggesting that maybe we should reinstitute it?

People call the SAT bias, can you imagine what they would say about voting restriction questions? They'd be nitpicked to death and I gaurentee that they'd be proven bias against some particular group (race, gender, party, religion etc.) and would be removed for similar reasons to that of jim crow etc.



I agree the public is poorly informed on a whole and probably could use a little schooling. BUT what you suggest is rather unrealistic, you cant force people to become informed and you can't tell people who are upstanding citizens and want to vote that they are too stupid or too uninformed to vote, they'd raise hell. We have enough trouble getting people into the polls as is. Year after year they talk about how concerning it is that more people don't vote. Most people who take the time to actually vote are at least minimally informed of their rights as American citizens and obviously value them enough to go on election day. That is why I voted for the option to make efforts to better inform the public but NOT to institute any form of tests.

I agree in a perfect society everybody would make informed and educated decisions, unfortunately thats unrealistic

I think that to address the problem of the uninformed voter, the solution lies in the educational system, not the voting system.

I agree

Coming out the honors classes of one of the richest counties in the nation (coincidentally also very liberal) and furthermore one of the top rated school systems, I can honestly say I'm not confident that each of those students I had class with could pass a test as extensive as what Rattlesnake proposed. What about the more poorly funded or just poorly constructed educational systems in America?

education and media reform would be places to start...but then the problem probably lies deeper in the laziness of many Americans, how do you change that?

What you propose would make America no longer in reality a representative democracy as only a rather select portion of the public would be prepared/allowed to vote. It would border on oligarchy.

ok I'm done for now...all I can say is America's Debate (not just this thread) leaves me with a lot to think about.

I think we need to at least have all media outlets to talk extensivly about the issues because nowadays, i think voters are voting for those in a specific party and namesake.

People voted for Bush II because he was the son fo Bush I, not because he had good explanations of the issues.

I think that it should be required that all newspapers and News networks cover every canidates' sides of an issue so that voters won't just vote for someone for the heck of it.

At least keep the public informed

I'm going to try to defend voter testing. Here's how:

Before entering the polling place, you need to answer the following questions:

1) What is the difference between liberal and conservative?

2) Is the US a democracy or republic?

3) Do we live in a capitalistic or socialistic society?

4) What is the major issue this election season?

Answering definitely to any one of these questions would disqualify you from voting. Obviously, you aren't paying attention

Though it is a potentially dangerous idea, I have been playing around in my head with the idea of some sort of competency test to check and balance the marching moron problem. The best way to implement it I have come up with so far would be to have half the legislature, the Senate seems a good choice, to be elected by those citizens whom have passed a competency test.

I have also considered requiring competency tests for people running for office or filling appointed positions. Having academics construct these tests as opposed to being constructed with political motives in mind would be important. A system to insure this is a difficult task. How to check and balance that ? hmmm

My observation is that voters are pathetically informed. Education is important but it will still not overcome this huge problem.

Your series of questions, AuthorMusician, do illustrate one aspect of this very well.

It sounds like a nice idea, but would having a competency test at the poll solve anything?


You have the people who don't care. More than likely they aren't going to vote anyway, so forget them.

You have the people who will find out the answers just to get in to the polls and then forget them right after. The effect would be not much different than what we have now, so why bother?

You have the informed voters who do care. They will know the answers regardless of whether or not there is a test so the test doesn't solve anything here either.


Maybe the problem is more the people who don't care but vote anyway so they can claim having "done something" about the problems we have. But then again, if only people who cared voted, the turnout would be even more pathetic than it is now.

That has to be the largest part of the problem. Perhaps if the lazy masses were told that they were not going to be allowed to vote in future elections unless they started showing up at the voting booth, some of them would be more motivated.

In Richard Bach's book, "Illusions, Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah", I learned that, for the most part, you can't make people care. It is the one thought in the entire book that jumped off the page and stuck in my mind and I read that book about 6 years ago.

But surely the last 2 years of High School could be used, with minor curriculum changes, to create a more informed voter? 4 semesters, 1 class each semester, spent learning about past elections and how they affected the country, and the world, would open some eyes. And of course, the students need to form their own ideology instead of just following the leads of Mom and Dad.

My experience with current High School "Civics" and social studies type classes is that not much information is presented and hardly any thinking is encouraged. Some college courses are not much better.

I am not fond of the idea of a test, even though I wish that Americans were more interested in politics. I think alot of this has to do with our media, and how it portrays and informs us. Watching TV in Europe seems less sensationalized to me, and France has talk shows (I swear, a good majority of French TV is people sitting around talking) spend decent amount on time on one issue, as opposed to three minutes on a variety of topics. I think the focus of half an hour or more on one subject tends to inform the viewer more than a superficial skimming of subjects. Also their channels are publicly owned, with less commercials and less commercial interest, which I think can have a huge impact on the information absorbed.

I think limiting the suffrage in any way is a bad thing. I also think that americans need to take more responsibility for their political system. We own it, and if we think it sucks (as Carlin says) it must be because the public sucks. Most of the government we complain about is elected officials or appointed officials from our elected representatives.

When we do not watch it lets the ooze seep in and corrode the system. When we are angered enough by the actions of our government then we will become informed and become active voters once again.

This is the public responsibility and we get the government we deserve.

I was pretty sure I'd posted something about this not too long ago and, sure enough, here it is from the Is Democracy the best way? thread:

Platypus, but some people are not competent enough to vote because they do not have knowledge of what politicians are for and against

Maybe they should be required to understand what a politician is for and against

I totally agree in theory, but as a practical matter nobody so far has suggested a way to assure such competence that doesn't lead to even worse things. Despite the problems of an ignorant electorate, no superior alternative to universal suffrage has yet been found.

While I do not feel there should be tests to qualify voters I also find complaints about butterfly ballots a bit absurd. I don't feel excessive amounts should be spent just to insure the terminally stupid record their vote correctly.

Yeah, while we're at it, let's reinstitute the grandfather tax!

raybb, this is off-topic and non-constructive. Please tell us what you think of Rattlesnake's idea in detail...why you agree with it or disagree with it.

What I'm saying is that it's ludacris to take away people's right to vote by testing their competancy. It's an inalienable right and I was referring to the grandfather tax as another ludacris tactic that did the same thing as his idea... Sorry, I thought that's all I really needed to say, I'm new here.

Hey, isn't Ludacris a rapper? Sorry, too easy LOL

As usual, sometimes the best ideas come from Science fiction novels. I think we need to change the entire idea behind citizen ship and age of consent/emancipation. I think instead of high school graduation being the kind of coming of age into adulthood, then an arbitrary age of 18 meaning you are old enough to vote, but not to drink etc, we need something to test for adult thinking and basic knowledge. I think a combination of a high school equivilancy exam and psych testing for comptency and cupablity that anyone over the age of 13 can take would be a better approach.

You can't deny the uneducated the right to vote. The majority of US citizens below the poverty mark are black, how would that rest anywhere in the country? Everyone must be allowed to vote. Those who are relatively uninformed tend not to vote anyway, but no need to resort to early 20th century tactics to prevent the "stupid" from voting...

The problem with that, GoAmerica, is that more often than not, a politician will tell groups at speeches and such, more or less what that group wants to hear.

So, one group may go in thinking what the politician is for is "x", and another group that what he is for is "y". Both would be right, but may be almost diametrically opposed. So, which of the two groups do you want to disinfranchise?

Both know what he is "for and against", and both are right.

I'm sorry, but you simply cannot place any conditions of testing on voting. If all citizens do not have the right to vote, regardless of education or knowledge of the candidates and issues, this country will become a plutocracy. I personally think that would be a turn for the worse.

Perhaps if the candidates and the news media spent more time actually exploring the issues, instead of mudslinging the opposing candidate, we would have a better informed electorate.

I am against the idea of imposing literacy, history, current events or citizenship tests to be permitted to vote. They are all discrimnatory and would never stand the numerous legal challenges that would be launched against them.

However, it is the voter's responsibiity to be informed, aware and possess a grasp of what the issues are and where the candidates stand before making a choice. Too many of us don't put in the work to become educated. We too often say, "Well, I'll just vote for the Democrat because I always vote for the Democrat."

You can't be informed if all your information comes from 30-second poltical ads or strictly adhering to whomever the party endorses as a candidate. I don't care if you vote FOR or AGAINST George Bush Jr. in 2004, but I hope you do so because you've informed YOURSELF with Bush's positions, policies and plans and you want four more years or can't wait to send him back to Texas.

In a democracy we get the kind of government we deserve and if we don't vote intelligently from a informed perspective, who are we going to blame if not ourselves?

Well, some checks and balances might help alleviate both Nightimers and raybb's concerns, and maybe help alleviate some other social problems at the same time. My proposal involves making it a constitutional right to access to training to become a "full adult/citizen"- something along the lines of a codified access to training and objective testing.

We have the technology and testing to tell if anybody from any culture is culpable in thier decision making proccess, even the disabled. Just come up with a federal level competancy/culpabilty test, so it is universal instead of varying from state to state. The bar should be set at about the same level as determining culpability for commiting a crime. This would simply mean that an individual is able to complete an adult decision making proccess. Doesn't take into level of education at all. We have had illeterate poeple with little or no schooling obviously score high on the intelligence testing. It is accurate enough testing that I find it very hard to believe that if we use the same definition as our state of culpability that only the most disabled poeple would be denied full adult/citizenship. And this would also perhaps afford them some protection from prosecution for some crimes though.

With culpability determined, a certain access to education and testing and remediation gauranteed with some responsibility codified on the part of the citizen for showing up to classes and such.

Though I didn't vote because of the English part.

No, no, no. The first thing Ive disagreed with you on CR, but lately Ive been very very against ANY MORE government intervention in Anything new, they have overextended themselves already IMO. Everyone should just vote, if they can figure out how to do it, only half the population votes anyway, mostly the competant, then semi competant.
The people we have for contenders are often a joke as it is, why put tests on voters so they can decide between two humourously incompetant candidates? I think about costs. Besides soon the tests would be scewed, irrational and corrupt.
Please lets not get any more red tape in the system than there already is.

This video link graphically shows the astonishing ignorance of the average American:

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/a...article4562.htm

Thomas, if you want to post a funny link about Bush, do it in the Political Jokes thread in Casual Conversations

I would like to see raised educational standards, but not necesarily applied to individuals' right to vote. I have long thought that we should have standardized testing for high school graduation, where students are required to demonstrate their basic capacity to be citizens... based on the same citizenship test immigrants have to take. Don't pass and you're still a citizen... but you have no diploma.

I worked as a recruiter in California for a year, and it was an incredible shock to me to find out just how little high school grads know about the world (and, by extension, how utterly meaningless most HS diplomas are in the real world!).

Makes me literally scared that Californians will elect Arnold, based on the premise that he'll get a large portion of clueless voters who don't usually bother to turn out, but decide to go to the polls just because they know his name so well.