FWIW, any of these “tests” could be done well before any elections take place, and include a “marker” on a state-issued ID that indicates passing this.
And require a “refresher test” every 5 or 10 years to retain the “marker”.
You’re assuming that all voting is done using “tech”.
Fine. And those who can hold a pen, and know what a mailbox looks like. Is this even democracy anymore!!!
There should be a poll tax. Only people who want to pay should have a say in government.
Heck maybe even a landowning requirement too.
I own a lawn mower, that should be proof enough, right?
If not you can use it to run over poll workers.
If my net worth is twice yours, my vote should count twice as much too. I’ve got more riding on the outcome…
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Given the amount of money spent on elections, that is depressingly true.
2020 spending on federal elections was $14.4 billion for 151 million voters – about $95 per voter.
Next time, maybe we should cut out the middle man.
Everyone gets 1 ballot free.
After that, you can buy ballots for $100 each.
Seems like the same effect, but the federal gov’t gets the money instead of media companies.
The biggest downside I see to this is people who have strong name recognition benefit the most - so populist people with cult-like followings. While their opposition may end up getting spread out to more people.
This guy gets it.
Good thing there is noone like that in the USA.
Nope. Just because a person needs assistance shouldn’t disqualify them from voting. Being blind, or other physical disabilities shouldn’t matter. Stephen Hawking says ‘hells na’ from the grave.
Oh sure now you want British citizens to vote in US elections? Didn’t we fight a war to end that?
I think it gets very hard in practice to separate ideology from fact when creating questions.
For example, in today’s environment i think it would be important to understand the role of the filibuster, in part to know how to assign blame, which is essential for our democracy to work properly.
But any question about the filibuster is going to be inherently political. For example, requiring somebody to know the history of the filibuster is going to impact not just how people assign blame but also their opinion on whether it should be reformed. And is it important to know how the filibuster supported segregation?
More generally, these questions would define what we think is important about our democracy. And that process would end up building a kind of secular myth too, about who we are. This already happens in education.
Even for people not interested in power, this would be a very difficult thing to do in a non-ideological way. And there would definitely be people involved who were very interested in power.
You mean for southern senators to block any attempts at civil rights changes in the early 1900s?
This is a true statement. However, we already create questions for our newest voters today.
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I agree, but it’s a small number of the overall voters.
If done for everybody, then the temptation of using to control voters would become much greater.
Yes, exactly what i had in mind.
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Correct, and borne out by the Trump administration changing the test. I still think it is worthwhile to review the test(s) to see if there are non-divisive facts that could be included.
Note that there are enough naturalized citizens to swing an election:
There were approximately 22 million naturalized citizens in the United States as of 2017, which the Migration Policy Institute reports is about half of the foreign-born population.
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IFYP