Do You Think That You Should Have to Take a Test to Vote?

The only change I would even consider supporting would be an increase of the voting age to 21.

Mandatory testing in order to vote? Definitely not. As someone said earlier, a citizen is a citizen. If you implement mandatory testing, you're going to create a class of people who have no representation in government and, as a result, have no rights.

I'm also not in favor of mandatory voting. People have the right to choose whether or not they wish to participate. That said, like you, I'd also rather that the ones who don't care enough or are too stupid to vote would just stay home, though again, by their own choice and not due to a government mandate.

i agree with any one who may hve already put this, it is a BAD idea, it will be another way of controlling the outcome by controlling the voters.

Everbody has the right to vote someone into power of the goverment that they are ruled under. This would be a step back in politics.

reply to post by mrwupy


The problem with this is that you are scaring people into voting. That is morally and ethically wrong. Furthermore I am not suggesting a test of intelligence, persay, but more like a test of whether or not you know what you are doing! I would say, I am taking a blind shot in the dark here, that at least 20%-45% of the poeple vote don't know crap about the political campaign that is going on. They just side with media and friends. The test would not be graded just, checked to see if you know what to do. The high school diploma and 2 years of college was a good idea.

reply to post by monkeybus


To all those poeple that say it is not a good idea and we have Rights then think about this. When we were given the right to vote the government thought that everyone who voted knew what the voters were talking about and were open minded. Back then people probably thought that it was a sin to make fun of future presedents! Now media has control of alot of the voters minds.

reply to post by tpeele


I think that people should get a proportional vote based on their IQ, nothing too dramatic, say third standard deviation high IQ you get three votes, third standard deviation low IQ one-third of a vote. Also, if at the time of the vote you are receiving more money from the government (not talking about wages, obviously, if you're in the military, we'll count that and other government jobs as productive) than you are paying in to the system, you get half a vote. This was why they originally had a property requirement on the voting franchise, because once poor people realize that instead of doing productive work they can vote themselves money from the public purse based on disability, victimization, (slavery reparations based on harm to the long dead, treaty violations, Abel's descendants suing Cain's descendants because after that little murder incident Abel's sheep wandered off, the Queen of England owes me money because some ancestor got killed in Scotland, either her or the Pope, let's put a skip tracer on the Holy Roman Empire, this check they sent me bounced), pain and suffering,etc....then your overall productivity is going to falter until too many people are useless, society falls, et cetera.

reply to post by nine-eyed-eel


That is not fair in any way.

Increase the voting age to 22, make all votes write-in.

Problem solved.

reply to post by Johnmike


hmmm......Sounds like an idea!! But.....there are somethings missing from it....i can't quite see it though

Absolutely NOT.

Additionally, I believe there should be no requirement to register to vote. The ONLY requirements for voting eligibility should be:

1 - The person is a resident of the area in which the vote is taking place, and is therefore subject to laws in that area.

2 - The person has not voted before in the current election.

3 - The person is at least 18 years of age.

4 - The person is not currently serving a penal sentence (in jail, on probation, etc.)


Justifications:
1 - In a representative republic, which the US at least in theory is, a person who is subject to the constraints and protections of the laws of the land should have a voice in deciding those laws.

2 - One person, one vote. Period. I, for example, have been disenfranchised my entire voting life from voting in presidential primaries, because I have not joined any particular herd.

3 - Those of you pushing for raising the voting age are, I guess, young enough to not personally remember the Vietnam era, when people who were too young to vote were being drafted and shipped off to kill and die in that era's misbegotten war. Not a good idea AT ALL.

4 - Once someone has served their time, they are, by law, 'forgiven', and should have a vote. If they are still serving some form of sentence, no vote.

reply to post by Open_Minded Skeptic

Well? Why not?

reply to post by tpeele


Upon what would such a test be based? There is no way to construct such a test that will not discriminate in some manner expressly prohibited by the US Constitution and relevant Amendments.

Who would administer these tests? Who would grade them? Are the administrators and graders completely free from bias? Not likely. Who watches them? Who watches the people who watch them?

True freedom has its risks. Recent voting results, when even close to accurate, do not reflect well on the judgment of the US voting population, in my opinion. But to institute a test of some sort will only make things worse.

Take as an analogy the NCLB tests... so now we have a generation of school kids that has been 'educated' to pass tests. Yet it seems to be universally recognized that the quality of education has declined since this was put into effect.

reply to post by Open_Minded Skeptic


Well I am not sure what it would be based on, it would be graded by the senate.

reply to post by tpeele


Here's a concrete example of the difficulties here:

Two potential voters, A and B.

A believes that the US has been acting like an Empire, and wants the US to drastically reduce its military presence around the world, and stop interfering in the internal affairs of sovereign nations.

B believes that the US must protect its interests around the world, and should therefore increase its military presence and always be ready to intervene in other nations when those nations behave in ways that might be contrary to US interests.

If we have a test that requires a voter to have a grasp of issues, which of these voters is to be denied a vote? It could easily be argued that one of them must not have a clue, given that their views are diametrically opposed.

So which one would be the one to not vote?

As for having the Senate grade the tests, I have little hope of that producing a non-biased result. We have seen that the Senate is pretty well politicized, and not the 'body of reasoned judgment' it was intended to be.

While I agree that US voters have not shown a great amount of wisdom in the last several cycles, I have yet to be convinced that any sort of test is the answer.

A real education system would help... one that teaches people to really think, to challenge assertions based on 'authority', rather than merely spout such... but we don't have that at this point in time, either.

An effort in that direction I could get behind!

reply to post by Open_Minded Skeptic


Alright then... but all this does is filter out all the idiot voters out of the poles.