I want to take away your right to vote!

I agree that we need to be more educated to properly make decisions on who or what to vote for in elections. The problem with creating requirements for an "approved" voter arise when it takes away a citizen's right. Of course since all Americans have a right to vote, we should be required to have pride in this and do something to further our knowledge of politics and our society. Instead of testing, I would move for a system of educational classes, free of charge, administered by the state or government in an unbiased manner. Maybe this would help fight the natural process of the Chaos Theory.

They tried testing. Didn't go over too well.

Anyone who is represented by the government should be able to cast a vote. You'd take away the right to vote from the poorest, least educated Americans, the least powerful among us. Unfortunately, most of these people don't vote anyway.

Free classes to clarify the issues would prove almost equally disastrous. Classes offered by the government would only reinforce the status quo.

"Sobering" doesn't cover it. But one of those metrics is so startling that it's actually hard to believe.

write-up: Ninety-six and a half percent of the American population is mediocre to illiterate where deciphering print is concerned. This is no commentary on their intelligence, but without ability to take in primary information from print and to interpret it they are at the mercy of commentators who tell them what things mean.

This was from bullet-point 6. How did they arrive at that figure? Please bear with my incredulity, but the claim seems outrageous: out of a nation of 300 million, only 10.5 million have any significant skill in reading comprehension?

And I could argue that it is a matter of intelligence. It's a combination of linguistic (interpreting sentence structure, vocabulary) and logical (judgment and assessment) skills in which, although they're not all intelligence, intelligence plays a pretty big part.

<loaded_question>What would happen if someone lacking those basic skills actually got elected?</loaded_question>

Certainly it makes the tide of anti-intellectualism more understandable...

I recall that in 2000 exit polls showed there were precincts, carried by Gore, where over fifty percent of the Gore voters could not provide the name of his running mate.

How do you like having your thoughtfully-cast vote cancelled out by somebody like that?

Reminds me of a quote I read, from a 19th Century Englishman whose name I forget, to the effect that: "I'm all for the proposition that the vote of a moron is worth that of a genius, but I'm decidedly against the idea that the votes of two morons should outweigh the vote of that same genius."

Guido Shone brought this up earlier today in an article about Dawkins and I have to say I have a hard time disagreeing.

When our forefathers created our democracy they limited voting to men who owned property. While that seems racist and sexist it does make sense for a strong democracy. In those days women were rarely educated, as were blacks. And if you owned property then you were much more likely to be educated and understand current events and politics.

In our current democracy everyone is given a voice because it's their country and so they should have a say in the decisions that take place. But when they don't know anything about politics, government, current events, economics or anything outside of their personal lives then they are ripe to be taken advantage of.

Today political campaigns are 1% about letting voters know where you stand on issues and 99% about making sure voters know you're family oriented, christian, wholesome and won't take away their guns. Now the battle is over personalities rather than policy. We see smear campaigns and Rove politics becoming more and more effective and democracy less and less secure.

Of course politicians want everyone to be able to vote. That's more people they can trick and more votes they can get for their side. When we see Democrats outraged at poor black voter suppression, is it because they are outraged at the racism and disenfranchising the poor? Or is it because those people would be more likely to vote for Democrats and so they are losing one of their core demographics.

Stephen Colbert made a good point on his show a while back, although I'm sure he was being ironic. He said something to the effect of: "Stop trying to get more people to vote, the less people that vote, the more my vote counts."

I think our system more or less filters out those without any desire to vote which is usually the same as the people without any knowledge of issues (or an issue of concern). The largest disservice is probably the busing and bring out the vote campaigns of both parties, they seek out otherwise disinterested people and bribe them into voting.

Does special interests run the country? Of course, because when you become interested enough to vote that means you must have a special interest :)

The only thing I can see a poll test being good for is preventing people from voting that were lied to and don't know enough to find out the truth. Of course look at many articles you can find here and places like the NYT, lies come fast and furious along with opinions in text as much as speech. A person who can read then is not really much more likely to be informed, they were just persuaded perhaps by a different group of interested parties. A real test would be a mythical one that could tell if what you thought you knew was actually the truth or rather somebody else's story concocted to help you vote the way they want.

I would love to force everyone to attend informative (and unprejudiced) meetings on upcoming votes before they happened. I'd love to take away the right to vote from those unwilling to take the class.

However, it is everyone's right to vote however they want; even if it means picking random blanks at the polling place. That is one of the signs of a free country: the right to throw away your vote.

I do wish, though, that people would see voting as their civic duty and their way of preserving their country. People should be excited to have a chance to vote.

I am also very supportive of clarifying EXACTLY what various bills mean and limit the extent of riders (these days, it's far to easy to title a bill "Kicking Puppies is Bad" and then include several laws dealing with nuclear proliferation and civil surveillance so that every one votes for it for fear of being branded as in favor of kicking puppies).

It's also very difficult to parse through public referendums. What exactly does Prop 106 mean? On the TV is says that it supports schools, but doesn't really say how or why.

I didn't have time to read all of the comments so I apologize if this was previously mentioned...but wouldn't the more interesting statistic be "How many illiterate Americans vote?" Perhaps a more practical solution is to continue to support our education system, and increase the quality of life in the nation-state itself.

It is always nice to see a provocative solution. Enjoyed the article.

I don't agree that testing is the answer.

Someone with severe dyslexia may find it impossible to read, thus having a valid medical cause for perceived inability to read, but that doesn't mean they can't comprehend the issues at hand, given a chance.

"Testing" was done in the 60's for some of the reasons you proposed. All you have to do is remember your history to see how that turned out.

Don't ignore history, lest you repeat the same mistakes over and over and over and over....

yes - i do wish people would be tested to at least show they have an understanding of what they're doing. do i think it will happen? no. i also agree that the probable intention of the framers was for people that voted to be intelligent. great article and discussion!

Two and a half years later I'm not sure if you are still monitoring this debate but I definitely think it's time to resurrect the idea! I agree wholeheartedly. Unfortunately, being able to pass a simple test is not even asked of those who represent us. Very sad. Recently the Intercollegiate Studies Institute American Civic Literacy Program gave a simple 33 question civics test to members of congress. It is incredible that elected officials on average were only able to score a 44% on the test! More appalling was the fact that 30% of elected officials do no know that "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" are the inalienable rights referred to in the Declaration of Independence.

Maybe we should have EDUCATED elected officials too! If you'd like to test your knowledge on the questions they were asked... here is a link - - I scored 90.91% (three questions wrong)...maybe I should run for office...lol.