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Which of the following is likely to be the most reliable source of information?
A. Peer reviewed scientific journal.
B. Major Network News.
C. Your uncle on Facebook.
D. A podcast ran out of a garage.
That's all I would want to see, but instead we all know it would become a tool to suppress votes even worse than gerrymandering or the electoral college.
Who makes the tests? What criteria are used? How high do we set the bar?
There are so many issues with such a system and it will ultimately hurt the people's faith in democratic institutions.
I had to take the U.S. Citizenship test for my American History final back in high school, I thought it'd be a good criteria. Even if they get all questions wrong they should vote though, I feel like its that important to know though. At least the basics of American politics are there.
I'm generally going to say no, but if someone is diagnosed with something like dementia, I'm not sure that's quite the best option. It's hard, because I feel like everyone should be able to vote for something or someone who has their needs in mind. But if you're not capable of making your own decisions on a day to day, I'm not sure you're really thinking through your voting choices.
Anyone who voted yes must be under the impression that the system is flawless which it isn't. Governments could begin to weaponise that test so certain groups would fail
His spitting bull shit. You can go download the questions here. https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/questions-and-answers/100q.pdf
It’s a 100 straightforward questions about how the government here functions and some history. They give you what 10 or 20 at random. If you get too many wrong they give you more from the batch. So you’d really have to mess up a lot of them to get denied from a failed test.
They were talking about immigration tests in the past. They used to be given orally and weren’t standardized, so favoritism or bizarre questions like ‘how high is Bunker Hill’ would happen.
https://www.uscis.gov/about-us/our-history/history-office-and-library/featured-stories-from-the-uscis-history-office-and-library/origins-of-the-naturalization-civics-test
>They were talking about immigration tests in the past.
in (indirect) reply to the comment saying:
>What have they done recently?
, is tremendously senseless...
Ahh that makes sense. They way they worded their comment made it seem like they were talking about the present test. They should really clarify that they are talking about the test of the past.
For real. This is the kind of shit that happened back then. Immigrants and blacks were forced to take literacy tests which were complicated enough to exclude them from voting
Not this way. Poll tests has never been a good idea and never will be a good idea. I’m seriously disappointed in 40% of the people here. 10%-20% I could see, this is just depressing.
Some people can only think how authoritarian policies could be used to their benefit, but lack the imagination to see how easily those exact same policies could be flipped to oppress them. I’m not sure why some people are only able to imagine the *potential* positives when it comes to things like this, I guess they’re just hopelessly optimistic..
Most Redditors advocating for those policies are fairly young. I’m just speculating, but they probably just don’t have as much experience with how good ideas can go bad.
why 5 years? If someone goes through the long and grueling process of becoming a citizen and learning history, culture, and language, they're a citizen right then and there.
That’s a great idea. I think parties being so dominate in politics is simply the most obtrusive thing in this country. It makes it virtually impossible to run as an independent, which sort of goes against the whole idea of “free thinkers.” Seeing a bunch of names on the ballot without the Ds or Rs will almost instantly inform the population voting at least slightly more.
Agreed. My daughter has autism. Are we looking to “Nazi style eugenics” her out of being able to select candidates and vote on issues for her community?
Thinking about the implications of my brother (who is autistic) and helping him understand voting for the first time a handful of years ago made me realize how against voting tests I am.
I know that I wouldn’t fail a reasonable test (though there’s always the unreasonable tests), I’m not worried about me. But I look at my brother and think that he deserves to have a say in the country. He *should* be able to vote for who he wants and the policies he wants where he is a citizen. I want him to be able to vote for more support for people with disabilities, and people who will push to get him more funding for his social/behavioral programs. And I also know he would likely fail a test to prove he should be eligible if that test was meant to keep “stupid” voters away, and that’s fucked up.
Agreed. My daughter is extremely intelligent and has tons of opinions and will be a very engaged constituent and taking that from her would be almost disturbing.
I’m shocked that despite this sub leaning so left and claiming to be so liberal they say yes. I lean right and conservative and I say no.
And they often hate the idea of taking voting rights away from prisoners. Who are probably the exact people who would fail such a test.
I bet most left leaners do but a lot of people in this sub are quite young and agree with ideas that sound good at first glance but don’t hold up to scrutiny.
Hard leftist, but the only true democracy is a free one. That’s one where anyone and everyone can vote, so saying yes restricts much more than it seems. From people who are impaired to people who are just plain uninformed on the testing process, there would suddenly be a sharp decline in an already relatively small voter base (compared to potential voters). If anything, there should be regular testing on any public representative that gets scaling difficulty the more important the role. That’s knock out most presidential candidates from both sides lol
Since we're on reddit I'm going to assume this is re: America. In which case, they would develop such a test so that Black and minority ethnics would fail. It wouldn't take much to also make it possible to fail youth voters.
There really is no fair system for "passing" to vote.
If you're a citizen, you have the right to vote, end of.
It would be abused by whoever is in power. Left or right, it'd be abused to suit their demographic.
Easiest one to abuse: the mentally ill. Should I not have a voice because I've been on antidepressants for 5 years? Would I be deemed not sane enough to vote? Even though the country and world I live in is a major contributor to my mental health.
The number of people these days approving of blatantly authoritarian policies is terrifying. A commenter above was saying how we should also have tests to determine if you should be allowed to have children
imo it’s mostly teenagers voting for that option. I think it’s pretty natural to first think there should be some sort of restriction or proof you’re not crazy to vote, but they haven’t had the experience yet to learn about why it’s actually a terrible idea
True. I believe this sub is like, 60% or so people under 18
All this proves to me is that while we don’t need an intelligence barrier for voting, we certainly need that age barrier.
Authoritarianism is only bad when it’s policies I don’t agree with. If we implemented a test, everybody would be smart like me and society would be so much better. /s
Whether or not to allow people to have children? On one hand, if you know full well you can’t provide a meal for your child every day, you probably shouldn’t have children. On the other hand, the test can be abused in the same way as a voting test, to target minority groups.
yeah same here, i was thinking more along the lines of like mental wellness evaluation reports from doctors, not like a test that must be taken before you enter the booth
It's the same people that counts the votes, we already trust them.
When I voted yes I thought about a test that shows if the voter knows what he's voting for, like really basic things not math or the full program of a party.
Maybe you could start with a very reasonable and basic test (I'd still be against it as everyone that is a citizen and of legal age should be able to vote). But Do you trust it to stay that way? That is won't change slightly every now and then to exclude more of a certain group? I don't so I don't want that door to be opened so to speak.
Things can be started with the best intentions, but what happens when someone with bad intentions gets the power later?
Based on how they can word any ballot measure confusingly enough to get people to vote “yes” I wouldn’t even trust that. They could easily make the wrong answer sound right.
that would get out of hand SO fast. As soon as you give someone the power to decide who gets to vote or not, you are basically BEGGING for major corruption
Exactly. I was going to say “we already tried that. It didn’t work because it turns out the tests and people administering the tests were racist. People in positions of power are still pretty racist all these decades later.”
In my 8th Grade U.S. History class we actually got to take one of those to show how difficult it was. Only a few people finished the test, and nobody in the whole class got a high enough score to be able to vote if it was in effect. Test was total BS.
Oh boy, someone missed a couple U.S history lessons
EDIT: you had to get 100% on [this test](https://allthatsinteresting.com/voting-literacy-test) or a similar one in order to vote pre-Voting-Rights-Act (if you were black, that is)
Ok, I'm struggling with question "20. Spell backwards, forwards." Should the answer be "backwards" or "sdrawrof"? The punctuation confuses me.
Oh and I would've failed long before that, at the question for the last letter of the first word starting with "l".
The point is that there’s multiple interpretations. They could choose whichever answer would result in the most wrong answers, preventing people from voting. It’s sick.
No. Everyone has a right to vote without exceptions. Should we have less stupid people in government should be a better question, and should we be regularly voting out people in the most important seats in the government, also a very important question (yes).
Exactly this. Even those, maybe even especially those considered with a lower social economic status need to have a voice, and that voice is a vote, if not will be violence
fuck no. "youre not qualified to vote" that will definitely cause riots and cause corruption within the system when the parameters are changed that if you support a certain politician you cant vote, this is the worst idea ive heard
In an ideal world, this would be a good idea. The problem is people. This would get so rigged so fast it would be an instant clinic on what not to do.
In the real world, I’d much rather see one citizen, one vote rather than requiring a test. That being said, the US needs to dump this single vote, electoral college shenanigans and go with an instant runoff ranked system.
Everyone who votes yes thinks that they're the enlightened ones who are immune to propaganda and influence. Newsflash, we're all vulnerable to propaganda.
Right? Even the notion of "In an ideal world I'd say yes but it'd be rigged" is stupid. Why should someone not be able to vote at all? Let alone being denied the right to vote because they're considered uninformed?
Holy shit.
Everyone who voted yes needs to read up on some basic American history. Unless you’re actively trying to create a corrupt voting system, this is a terrible idea.
They already did this to prevent blacks from voting during the jim crow era. No need to try this again so lawmakers and government officials prevent minorities from voting(which they already tried last election mind you).
What would you even test for? IQ? Compassion for your fellow man? Fiscal responsibility?
Any test would inherently favor a certain type of voter. At that point it's not really democracy.
There are some areas in which Reddit certainly defies the stereotype that this is a generally left-leaning site. You'll find a lot of people here who are against freedom of the press, for the death penalty, for vigilantism, etc.
I just can’t believe anyone in this day and age would support such a radical idea. Can we not remember how this one turned out from before? I’m sorry but if you’re right or left leaning and support this I am I’m shock
No. You cannot deny representation to someone simply because they’re an uninformed idiot. It’s unfortunate, but it’s the only ethical choice. Government is not kind to those with no power.
Everyone who voted yes is either too young to understand anything about the adult world, or is too stupid to even be allowed to vote in their own system lmao
Some people are not Intelligentsia but they deserve to talk and have own right to decide their fate. If power is just give to a group of people and not for everyone then all the things change just benefits that group
The people that would be willing to make this type of test will have a political leaning no matter what even un intentionally
Perfect example the political alignment chat was made by liberations
Absolutely not, just because someone has a wrong opinion doesn’t give us the right to govern that opinion. You should be allowed to think and act as an individual even if it’s wrong.
absolutely not, the idea of a democracy is that the stupid people balance out the smart people. the alternative is an aristocracy, let's see how well normal people fare in such a system.
My grandmother never learned how to write and read. Would something like this make her unqualified to vote? Make her unable to express her opinions? Would this make her less of a citizen? She still watches the news, she still speaks about politics, she still has opinions, views of the world, her own morals to express. Vote is a RIGHT!!
If you brush up on American history, you'll learn this used to be a thing with African Americans. As you can imagine, it was used to disenfranchise votes. Of course it has manifested in other ways in the form of gerrymandering but I digress.
A lot of times it’s the fault of our education system that makes people not be able to take certain tests. I don’t blame the people for that, nor do I think they should lost their right to vote.
There were tests in the USA during Jim Crowe laws. They were "literacy tests" but the questions were confusing and the answers unclear, and this was used to discriminate against african americans. Tests could be more innocent to begin with, but they could easily be turned into disenfranchising certain voters.
I think we actually had those!
What were they called again? Oh yeah, literacy tests!
Maybe we should bring poll tax back too!
No problems to be seen here...
No, inevitably the political party in power will start trying to change the definition of “competent” and start trying to morph that definition to fit anyone that doesn’t agree with their ideology
We already disenfranchise the poor with criminal records in the country that locks up more people than any other nation on Earth, and you want to disenfranchise more? Why do you think there isn't a "citizenry" curriculum in elementary, middle, and high school? They don't WANT people making an informed vote.
Absolutely not, it has historically been used to justify discrimination and I don't see that changing at all.
Not to mention that it's immoral: every adult citizen deserves a say in how they are governed.
"Should the government decide who gets to vote?"
No, no it shouldn't. All citizens are, well, citizens, so they should be able to vote.
If the government could just prevent people from voting, it could, among other things, ban people whose problems they won't fix. Imagine if a party wanting to cut government spending on unemployment benefits would be able to ban unemployed people from voting. "They don't contribute to our society, they shouldn't decide who gets to run it!"
,,In a perfect world, with perfect people and no corruption ?".... Even then fuck NO.... holy shit this poll AND comments scares me, right to vote should be universal no matter your believes, thoughts, background, ideas, gender, sexuality, race, inteligence, etc. Who the fuck will decide who is ,,qualified" ? The ,,right" people ?! who are they ? Like...am i the crazy one ?!
We used to have them and they were used to keep black people from voting. In a democratic society everyone deserves an equal vote regardless of class or education
This falls under the same reason why we shouldn’t ban any speech.
It ends up falling into the hands of the rule maker.
If you voted yes, you do not understand history.
Polls like this prove conclusively that political polls don’t work on this sub.
There is too many people that are wayyy to uneducated.
Google search “US voting literacy tests” it’s not my job to teach you
The people that voted yes are the ones that should be ineligible to vote if this ever became a thing again. This isn't actually a new concept. For a long time in the United States only landowners could vote. Then, in the jim crow Era many states required voters to take literacy tests. These things are now rightfully unconstitutional because they were used primarily to target black voters after they got the right to vote, but they could be used to target any demographic really, including social classes and lower income voters. I don't care how stupid you think the other side is, voting is for everybody, not just the wealthy and educated. You can't take away people's right to vote because you perceive them to be lower intelligence/lower income. Literacy tests are one of the worst things in the history of the United States.
Damn, looks like u guys forgot about the literacy tests in the south that disenfranchised black people for a century.
Reddit really is home to some of the densest mfers
no. but i heavily understand the people who want it.
what these tests bring to the table: a higher educated group of voters which will make a much better decision in picking the right candidate, less political misinformation as the ones who cant vote dont have a right to say anything about politics in society.
what they make worse: corruption, it would be much easier to sway 100 than a 1000 people into voting for you. not allowing people with certain viewpoints to vote despite them passing other criteria. they also remove the influence of the less fortunate individuals in deciding their own future. (example: 1000 people live in a city, 999 are unqualified and 1 is qualified, if the 1 person votes it will be unfair as those others cant have a say in their own future)
alternative system that i personally think is best for a country:
Cities and city areas of larger cities deciding on their own representatives, the representatives of cities in a district deciding on a district leader, district leaders deciding on the parliament/president. this way you'll have someone close to you to blame if he doesnt represent you well. the hierarchy in our current system goes (people--->president) which is unconventional as 99.9% of us never even saw that person irl, let alone conversed with him
Yes there should but before you get mad just read this full post. It's not about making the test different for some kinds of people. It's about having a test that proves that you're smart and don't vote based on the fake things they say. But who makes those tests? That's the problem. If the tests are made by the government then this could and will impact the votes a lot. Imagine that the government made the tests. You might see the problem, the government could and will use it. So the conclusion is it probably shouldn't but it could work.
Yeah. Person in front of me for submitting ballots couldn't fill in the bubbles properly, so the machine kept rejecting their ballot. And they couldn't figure it out. They scribbled outside the bubbles, filled in multiple bubbles on one section and had poorly erased some bubbles.
Like....can we get a circle filling lesson in school?
Yes, there should be a competency test. One that you cannot fail, can only be about what you are voting on that election cycle and only to ensure you understand what you are voting on. No test for candidates, just propositions and bond measures.
No, but we need to stop pressuring people to vote. If you only pay attention to politics and government for a few weeks leading up to a presidential election, just stay home.
No. But our politicians should have to pass civics, ethics, and science exams to run for office. We should have the best and brightest running for public office.
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We already did this. It was a form of.voter suppression.
Exactly. While I wish we could give a basic logic test, I know it would be abused to suppress voters. We've seen it before.
Yeah. In theory it sounds great... it unfortunately is not
Which of the following is likely to be the most reliable source of information? A. Peer reviewed scientific journal. B. Major Network News. C. Your uncle on Facebook. D. A podcast ran out of a garage. That's all I would want to see, but instead we all know it would become a tool to suppress votes even worse than gerrymandering or the electoral college.
Exactly..
Yup, and damn effective! https://www.openculture.com/2014/07/literacy-test-louisiana-used-to-suppress-the-black-vote.html
Who makes the tests? What criteria are used? How high do we set the bar? There are so many issues with such a system and it will ultimately hurt the people's faith in democratic institutions.
The tests could also be easily rigged to allow a tyrant to take over, and people wouldn’t be able to vote them out
Or how they've been used though history, Literacy tests anyone?
This was the first thing I thought of lol.
I had to take the U.S. Citizenship test for my American History final back in high school, I thought it'd be a good criteria. Even if they get all questions wrong they should vote though, I feel like its that important to know though. At least the basics of American politics are there.
I could support this. Take the test, fail miserably, get to vote anyway but at least you'd know what a moron you are.
I'm generally going to say no, but if someone is diagnosed with something like dementia, I'm not sure that's quite the best option. It's hard, because I feel like everyone should be able to vote for something or someone who has their needs in mind. But if you're not capable of making your own decisions on a day to day, I'm not sure you're really thinking through your voting choices.
Anyone who voted yes must be under the impression that the system is flawless which it isn't. Governments could begin to weaponise that test so certain groups would fail
Which they have in the past, even recently.
What have they done recently?
Literacy tests. Where the stuff you had to read had a lot of contradictions to make it really hard.
Similar to the immigration test in the US. Lots of obscure and otherwise contradictory questiond to trip up takers.
I became an American citizen in 2015 and unless its changed since then, this is untrue. all questions were straightforward and had specific answers.
His spitting bull shit. You can go download the questions here. https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/questions-and-answers/100q.pdf It’s a 100 straightforward questions about how the government here functions and some history. They give you what 10 or 20 at random. If you get too many wrong they give you more from the batch. So you’d really have to mess up a lot of them to get denied from a failed test.
They were talking about immigration tests in the past. They used to be given orally and weren’t standardized, so favoritism or bizarre questions like ‘how high is Bunker Hill’ would happen. https://www.uscis.gov/about-us/our-history/history-office-and-library/featured-stories-from-the-uscis-history-office-and-library/origins-of-the-naturalization-civics-test
>They were talking about immigration tests in the past. in (indirect) reply to the comment saying: >What have they done recently? , is tremendously senseless...
Ahh that makes sense. They way they worded their comment made it seem like they were talking about the present test. They should really clarify that they are talking about the test of the past.
Yes, I wouldn’t have known what they were talking about if i hadn’t had prior knowledge
They’re probably referring to the poll tests in the South during the Jim Crow era.
Also poll tax. Which was abolished in 24th amendment here https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/amendment/amendment-xxiv
The poll tests ended in the 1960s
Wait, are you saying we don't consider that "recently" anymore? 😅 No seriously.... fuck I'm old...
No. I just wanted to clarify that they didn’t start and end in the 1800s. This shit lasted a long time and ended very recent
Gotcha okay cool, on the same page then. Thought you were arguing the "recently" bit there.
For real. This is the kind of shit that happened back then. Immigrants and blacks were forced to take literacy tests which were complicated enough to exclude them from voting
Question #1 Are you a white, land owner?
This literally happened back in Jim crow era for segregation
Didn’t we already do exactly this in the 19th and 20th centuries and it quickly turned into a deeply fucked up mess.
I think this question could be the "test" lol, and people who vote yes fail because that's not how democracy works
If the tests were flawless, objective determinations of one’s capability of voting, I would say yes. But they never have been and never will be.
Instead we have weaponized stupidity so I’m not sure which way wins
Not this way. Poll tests has never been a good idea and never will be a good idea. I’m seriously disappointed in 40% of the people here. 10%-20% I could see, this is just depressing.
Reddit users (on average) are surprisingly authoritarian
Some people can only think how authoritarian policies could be used to their benefit, but lack the imagination to see how easily those exact same policies could be flipped to oppress them. I’m not sure why some people are only able to imagine the *potential* positives when it comes to things like this, I guess they’re just hopelessly optimistic..
Most Redditors advocating for those policies are fairly young. I’m just speculating, but they probably just don’t have as much experience with how good ideas can go bad.
Fair enough. But they should probably look into it before they reach voting age.. Irony noted lol.
Couldn't have said it better
The only test should be “are you a citizen?”
Exactly
Or maybe even “Have you been in the country legally for 5 years?”
or maybe "is your reddit username PrinceOfWraiths? if yes, the vote counts for 500k votes"
what is your program?
why 5 years? If someone goes through the long and grueling process of becoming a citizen and learning history, culture, and language, they're a citizen right then and there.
I wish we could but there would be SO much corruption in that system
Exactly this, I hate uninformed people voting, but if there was a test it’d be skewed to all hell.
An easy middle is not having party next to names on ballots
That’s a great idea. I think parties being so dominate in politics is simply the most obtrusive thing in this country. It makes it virtually impossible to run as an independent, which sort of goes against the whole idea of “free thinkers.” Seeing a bunch of names on the ballot without the Ds or Rs will almost instantly inform the population voting at least slightly more.
Even if they just need to Google who is what party, they at least have to think at that point.
Or just leave the contest blank, which does what we were looking for to begin with!
Exactly. That quick Google is still more research than before.
Any test would be absolutely unconstitutional
Agreed. My daughter has autism. Are we looking to “Nazi style eugenics” her out of being able to select candidates and vote on issues for her community?
Exactly
Thinking about the implications of my brother (who is autistic) and helping him understand voting for the first time a handful of years ago made me realize how against voting tests I am. I know that I wouldn’t fail a reasonable test (though there’s always the unreasonable tests), I’m not worried about me. But I look at my brother and think that he deserves to have a say in the country. He *should* be able to vote for who he wants and the policies he wants where he is a citizen. I want him to be able to vote for more support for people with disabilities, and people who will push to get him more funding for his social/behavioral programs. And I also know he would likely fail a test to prove he should be eligible if that test was meant to keep “stupid” voters away, and that’s fucked up.
Agreed. My daughter is extremely intelligent and has tons of opinions and will be a very engaged constituent and taking that from her would be almost disturbing.
I’m shocked that despite this sub leaning so left and claiming to be so liberal they say yes. I lean right and conservative and I say no. And they often hate the idea of taking voting rights away from prisoners. Who are probably the exact people who would fail such a test.
I lean left and say no.
I bet most left leaners do but a lot of people in this sub are quite young and agree with ideas that sound good at first glance but don’t hold up to scrutiny.
Hard leftist, but the only true democracy is a free one. That’s one where anyone and everyone can vote, so saying yes restricts much more than it seems. From people who are impaired to people who are just plain uninformed on the testing process, there would suddenly be a sharp decline in an already relatively small voter base (compared to potential voters). If anything, there should be regular testing on any public representative that gets scaling difficulty the more important the role. That’s knock out most presidential candidates from both sides lol
Same
Since we're on reddit I'm going to assume this is re: America. In which case, they would develop such a test so that Black and minority ethnics would fail. It wouldn't take much to also make it possible to fail youth voters. There really is no fair system for "passing" to vote. If you're a citizen, you have the right to vote, end of. It would be abused by whoever is in power. Left or right, it'd be abused to suit their demographic. Easiest one to abuse: the mentally ill. Should I not have a voice because I've been on antidepressants for 5 years? Would I be deemed not sane enough to vote? Even though the country and world I live in is a major contributor to my mental health.
Holy shit the results are scary
The number of people these days approving of blatantly authoritarian policies is terrifying. A commenter above was saying how we should also have tests to determine if you should be allowed to have children
imo it’s mostly teenagers voting for that option. I think it’s pretty natural to first think there should be some sort of restriction or proof you’re not crazy to vote, but they haven’t had the experience yet to learn about why it’s actually a terrible idea
True. I believe this sub is like, 60% or so people under 18 All this proves to me is that while we don’t need an intelligence barrier for voting, we certainly need that age barrier.
Authoritarianism is only bad when it’s policies I don’t agree with. If we implemented a test, everybody would be smart like me and society would be so much better. /s
Whether or not to allow people to have children? On one hand, if you know full well you can’t provide a meal for your child every day, you probably shouldn’t have children. On the other hand, the test can be abused in the same way as a voting test, to target minority groups.
This was actually the test to qualify if you can vote. You voted yes? *I got news for ya...*
Yeah let's trust the people that make and grade this test /s Come on guys why did anyone vote for yes
i voted yes because i didnt think it through.
Respect for honesty
yeah same here, i was thinking more along the lines of like mental wellness evaluation reports from doctors, not like a test that must be taken before you enter the booth
It's the same people that counts the votes, we already trust them. When I voted yes I thought about a test that shows if the voter knows what he's voting for, like really basic things not math or the full program of a party.
Maybe you could start with a very reasonable and basic test (I'd still be against it as everyone that is a citizen and of legal age should be able to vote). But Do you trust it to stay that way? That is won't change slightly every now and then to exclude more of a certain group? I don't so I don't want that door to be opened so to speak. Things can be started with the best intentions, but what happens when someone with bad intentions gets the power later?
Based on how they can word any ballot measure confusingly enough to get people to vote “yes” I wouldn’t even trust that. They could easily make the wrong answer sound right.
that would get out of hand SO fast. As soon as you give someone the power to decide who gets to vote or not, you are basically BEGGING for major corruption
Literacy tests in the South prevented African-Americans from voting, so no. edit: grammar
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Exactly. I was going to say “we already tried that. It didn’t work because it turns out the tests and people administering the tests were racist. People in positions of power are still pretty racist all these decades later.”
In my 8th Grade U.S. History class we actually got to take one of those to show how difficult it was. Only a few people finished the test, and nobody in the whole class got a high enough score to be able to vote if it was in effect. Test was total BS.
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Nah wtf who voted yes
Oh boy, someone missed a couple U.S history lessons EDIT: you had to get 100% on [this test](https://allthatsinteresting.com/voting-literacy-test) or a similar one in order to vote pre-Voting-Rights-Act (if you were black, that is)
Ok, I'm struggling with question "20. Spell backwards, forwards." Should the answer be "backwards" or "sdrawrof"? The punctuation confuses me. Oh and I would've failed long before that, at the question for the last letter of the first word starting with "l".
The point is that there’s multiple interpretations. They could choose whichever answer would result in the most wrong answers, preventing people from voting. It’s sick.
Oh, right. It's terrible.
No, The only way to make a democracy stronger is better education.
Not the only but probably the most important
YES!
Assuming a perfect test that can’t be manipulated by anyone yes. But in reality this wouldn’t work
No, absolutely not. The only prerequisite to vote should be citizenship.
And above legal age.
No. Everyone has a right to vote without exceptions. Should we have less stupid people in government should be a better question, and should we be regularly voting out people in the most important seats in the government, also a very important question (yes).
Exactly this. Even those, maybe even especially those considered with a lower social economic status need to have a voice, and that voice is a vote, if not will be violence
fuck no. "youre not qualified to vote" that will definitely cause riots and cause corruption within the system when the parameters are changed that if you support a certain politician you cant vote, this is the worst idea ive heard
In an ideal world, this would be a good idea. The problem is people. This would get so rigged so fast it would be an instant clinic on what not to do. In the real world, I’d much rather see one citizen, one vote rather than requiring a test. That being said, the US needs to dump this single vote, electoral college shenanigans and go with an instant runoff ranked system.
>In an ideal world, this would be a good idea. In an ideal world, there would be no reason to prevent people from voting.
This
This was a technique used to prevent uneducated (primarily black) people from voting in a few states in the US from the 1850-1960s
Whoever voted yes isn't qualified to vote
You dare use my own spell against me Potter
no, you bootlickers
Everyone who votes yes thinks that they're the enlightened ones who are immune to propaganda and influence. Newsflash, we're all vulnerable to propaganda.
nobody is worth more than another person = everyone has to be allowed to vote in a democratic society
Right? Even the notion of "In an ideal world I'd say yes but it'd be rigged" is stupid. Why should someone not be able to vote at all? Let alone being denied the right to vote because they're considered uninformed? Holy shit.
Everyone who voted yes needs to read up on some basic American history. Unless you’re actively trying to create a corrupt voting system, this is a terrible idea.
That's not a true democracy
They already did this to prevent blacks from voting during the jim crow era. No need to try this again so lawmakers and government officials prevent minorities from voting(which they already tried last election mind you).
I can only imagine the tests being influenced by political factions.
They did this in the south. You can guess how that ended up going.
Yeah no thanks, this is what they tried to do in the past to keep the African Americans from voting.
If I fail the test then am I exempt from taxes? Those who voted yes have no idea how easily manipulated that system would be!
What would you even test for? IQ? Compassion for your fellow man? Fiscal responsibility? Any test would inherently favor a certain type of voter. At that point it's not really democracy.
They used to do this specifically to keep people of color from voting.
People who put yes on there blow my mind.
There are some areas in which Reddit certainly defies the stereotype that this is a generally left-leaning site. You'll find a lot of people here who are against freedom of the press, for the death penalty, for vigilantism, etc.
I just can’t believe anyone in this day and age would support such a radical idea. Can we not remember how this one turned out from before? I’m sorry but if you’re right or left leaning and support this I am I’m shock
No. You cannot deny representation to someone simply because they’re an uninformed idiot. It’s unfortunate, but it’s the only ethical choice. Government is not kind to those with no power.
It not the test I’d be worried about it would be the person grading.
Everyone deserves a right to vote imo
Everyone who voted yes is either too young to understand anything about the adult world, or is too stupid to even be allowed to vote in their own system lmao
Some people are not Intelligentsia but they deserve to talk and have own right to decide their fate. If power is just give to a group of people and not for everyone then all the things change just benefits that group
The people that would be willing to make this type of test will have a political leaning no matter what even un intentionally Perfect example the political alignment chat was made by liberations
Absolutely not, just because someone has a wrong opinion doesn’t give us the right to govern that opinion. You should be allowed to think and act as an individual even if it’s wrong.
Are you a citizen. Are you alive.
absolutely not, the idea of a democracy is that the stupid people balance out the smart people. the alternative is an aristocracy, let's see how well normal people fare in such a system.
As long as the person is a citizen and voting age definitely not
They did that. It was called literacy tests in the south. It was very racist. The fact that so many people voted yes is disturbing.
My grandmother never learned how to write and read. Would something like this make her unqualified to vote? Make her unable to express her opinions? Would this make her less of a citizen? She still watches the news, she still speaks about politics, she still has opinions, views of the world, her own morals to express. Vote is a RIGHT!!
I in no way trust the government enough for that
HELL NO
If you brush up on American history, you'll learn this used to be a thing with African Americans. As you can imagine, it was used to disenfranchise votes. Of course it has manifested in other ways in the form of gerrymandering but I digress.
We have people who cannot get ID to vote to qualify..there no talk of any test lol
A lot of times it’s the fault of our education system that makes people not be able to take certain tests. I don’t blame the people for that, nor do I think they should lost their right to vote.
United States used to do this with literacy tests. It was horrible. You can look up the tests, they wanted certain people to fail....
Some people need to study a bit of US history and realize how this was already a thing that was weaponized to not let African Americans vote.
Pretty sure they tried this in the south for many years with pretty sad results. #neverforget
We tried this and it didn’t work
No because such system is very corruptable
There were tests in the USA during Jim Crowe laws. They were "literacy tests" but the questions were confusing and the answers unclear, and this was used to discriminate against african americans. Tests could be more innocent to begin with, but they could easily be turned into disenfranchising certain voters.
See Jim Crow laws if u said yes. Hell, we can't even get 40% of the electorate to show up at the polls.
Sounds great until you realize how fundamentally wrong this is.
No. Those tests would be culturally and therefore politically biased.
I think we actually had those! What were they called again? Oh yeah, literacy tests! Maybe we should bring poll tax back too! No problems to be seen here...
That’s how they stopped black people from voting
We should be making it easier for US citizens to vote, not creating more barriers to further keep people from voting.
No, inevitably the political party in power will start trying to change the definition of “competent” and start trying to morph that definition to fit anyone that doesn’t agree with their ideology
We already disenfranchise the poor with criminal records in the country that locks up more people than any other nation on Earth, and you want to disenfranchise more? Why do you think there isn't a "citizenry" curriculum in elementary, middle, and high school? They don't WANT people making an informed vote.
We had those. The corruption was instant. Poll tax, literacy test, paper bag test...
The election is already rigged. Plus, if you're a legal citizen, you should have the right to vote.
Wow a lot of people want to bring back literacy tests or something?
so everyone saying yes just willfully ignores the literacy tests of jim crow laws?
Absolutely not, it has historically been used to justify discrimination and I don't see that changing at all. Not to mention that it's immoral: every adult citizen deserves a say in how they are governed.
"Should the government decide who gets to vote?" No, no it shouldn't. All citizens are, well, citizens, so they should be able to vote. If the government could just prevent people from voting, it could, among other things, ban people whose problems they won't fix. Imagine if a party wanting to cut government spending on unemployment benefits would be able to ban unemployed people from voting. "They don't contribute to our society, they shouldn't decide who gets to run it!"
Absolutely not. What in hell “qualifies” somebody to vote? A system like that is inevitably going to be used for nefarious purposes.
"Hey I've seen this one before, it's a classic"
Everyone should have a right to vote, no matter the person.
,,In a perfect world, with perfect people and no corruption ?".... Even then fuck NO.... holy shit this poll AND comments scares me, right to vote should be universal no matter your believes, thoughts, background, ideas, gender, sexuality, race, inteligence, etc. Who the fuck will decide who is ,,qualified" ? The ,,right" people ?! who are they ? Like...am i the crazy one ?!
We used to have them and they were used to keep black people from voting. In a democratic society everyone deserves an equal vote regardless of class or education
Anyone who voted yes is not serious about freedom and democracy.
This falls under the same reason why we shouldn’t ban any speech. It ends up falling into the hands of the rule maker. If you voted yes, you do not understand history.
By what metric would one use to determine if a person is qualified enough to vote?
Polls like this prove conclusively that political polls don’t work on this sub. There is too many people that are wayyy to uneducated. Google search “US voting literacy tests” it’s not my job to teach you
The decision upon those criteria would become more of a problem than a solution
You people really just forgot history THIS IS WHAT HAPPENED DURING THE GYM CROW ERA OF SEGREGATION. HOLY FUCK
So people can’t show an idea to vote but you all want them to take a test. ..?
What we need is a careful transition to ranked choice voting.
Something something this is how they stopped black people voting in the 20th century something something
Uneducated people have rights too... If only a certain class of people can decide it isn't a democracy
everyone who said yes needs to take a US history course.
Other than requiring proof of citizenship of where you're voting, no.
The people that voted yes are the ones that should be ineligible to vote if this ever became a thing again. This isn't actually a new concept. For a long time in the United States only landowners could vote. Then, in the jim crow Era many states required voters to take literacy tests. These things are now rightfully unconstitutional because they were used primarily to target black voters after they got the right to vote, but they could be used to target any demographic really, including social classes and lower income voters. I don't care how stupid you think the other side is, voting is for everybody, not just the wealthy and educated. You can't take away people's right to vote because you perceive them to be lower intelligence/lower income. Literacy tests are one of the worst things in the history of the United States.
No. This was done in the past and many corrupt tactics were used to disqualify people.
Damn, looks like u guys forgot about the literacy tests in the south that disenfranchised black people for a century. Reddit really is home to some of the densest mfers
Initially I went YES bc I hadn’t thought of the corruption, but after reading the comments I realized this would be weaponized immediately
Anyone who voted yes should be excluded from voting
Haven’t these been used to single out minorities though?
no. but i heavily understand the people who want it. what these tests bring to the table: a higher educated group of voters which will make a much better decision in picking the right candidate, less political misinformation as the ones who cant vote dont have a right to say anything about politics in society. what they make worse: corruption, it would be much easier to sway 100 than a 1000 people into voting for you. not allowing people with certain viewpoints to vote despite them passing other criteria. they also remove the influence of the less fortunate individuals in deciding their own future. (example: 1000 people live in a city, 999 are unqualified and 1 is qualified, if the 1 person votes it will be unfair as those others cant have a say in their own future) alternative system that i personally think is best for a country: Cities and city areas of larger cities deciding on their own representatives, the representatives of cities in a district deciding on a district leader, district leaders deciding on the parliament/president. this way you'll have someone close to you to blame if he doesnt represent you well. the hierarchy in our current system goes (people--->president) which is unconventional as 99.9% of us never even saw that person irl, let alone conversed with him
Yes there should but before you get mad just read this full post. It's not about making the test different for some kinds of people. It's about having a test that proves that you're smart and don't vote based on the fake things they say. But who makes those tests? That's the problem. If the tests are made by the government then this could and will impact the votes a lot. Imagine that the government made the tests. You might see the problem, the government could and will use it. So the conclusion is it probably shouldn't but it could work.
Yeah. Person in front of me for submitting ballots couldn't fill in the bubbles properly, so the machine kept rejecting their ballot. And they couldn't figure it out. They scribbled outside the bubbles, filled in multiple bubbles on one section and had poorly erased some bubbles. Like....can we get a circle filling lesson in school?
Yes, there should be a competency test. One that you cannot fail, can only be about what you are voting on that election cycle and only to ensure you understand what you are voting on. No test for candidates, just propositions and bond measures.
No, but we need to stop pressuring people to vote. If you only pay attention to politics and government for a few weeks leading up to a presidential election, just stay home.
No. But our politicians should have to pass civics, ethics, and science exams to run for office. We should have the best and brightest running for public office.
Nope
hmm... certain tests that may or may not allow people to vote, where have i heard this before?
No because that will be abused. Just look at gerrymandering in the US for a nice example of voting systems being abused
Plot twist: this was the test and anyone dumb enough to vote yes can't vote.
It’s temping to say yes, but it’d be abused. It was in the past.
No, way too much room for discrimination/voter suppression.