Originally posted by Quincy
Hey man this is incredibly weak. I’d say I was disappointed, but you frequently reveal these little beliefs that I find incredibly privileged and harmful, plus really arrogant. I can’t believe you want to champion yourself as having the highest moral ground to stand on while saying something like this.“No excuse.” Who are you? Do you think everyone has access to the internet even now? Would there be classes people have to take to learn about each candidates history? Would these classes be free? Who runs them? An unbiased third party? You?
I’m agog because I KNOW you’re smarter than this. What brings you to this kind of belief? I’m like, afraid to actually ask you these questions because you’re such an anomaly here. Beyond even left and right, the belief not everyone should get a vote and would have to pass not just one but two tests? Shaking my damn head man.
What a terribly condescending first sentence. I'll respond to the content in your post in the order that you present it.
"Little beliefs" eh? These are not little beliefs. Or did you forget every single immigrant candidate has to take 1 of these tests already?
Moral high ground, huh? From reading your post, you're coming from a position of innappropriate self-righteousness, inadvertent racism, and privilege.
Yes, almost every single person has access to the internet and free libraries. You're so privileged you don't even know how poor people live. You can't even fathom the idea that the internet is available to almost every last person in the US. It's not even part of your experience. You don't even know what poor is even like. Did you know over 96% of Americans have a mobile phone? Did you know over 81% have a smart phone? And this data is over a year old and those numbers are only higher than they are, now.
https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/fact-sheet/mobile/
I wrote a very lengthy paper on how such a system would work for my political science degree. How do immigrants pass the test? Who runs the current tests?
Yes, I would definitely like to run the tests and write all the questions. Not even kidding a little bit. I would definitely want other like minded, objective, individuals to QA the work to ensure I didn't put a bias in the questions. It should be based purely on accessible language (already the law), facts, and the ballot-candidates. How does "isidewith" manage to create questions that do such an amazing job of not having a bias? You act like it is impossible so we shouldn't even try to enfranchise more voters (more on this, later).
You clearly do not know I am smarter than this. That's just weaksauce condescension on your part. As if you can insult me into changing my mind or position with indirect influence like this...
What brings me to this kind of belief is the extreme amounts of ignorance and a lack of due diligence when it comes to politics voters. The average voter is dangerously illinformed. Many hold lies as beliefs and beliefs that are harmful. They do not take the time it takes to actually understand the nuances and facts of the US Civic System and the politicians running for office. Their votes are sometimes harmful. And we see that all the time.
Currently, the belief that not everyone should get a right to vote is actually in place in nearly 100% of every single country that allows votes. In your self-righteous anger, you seem to have overlooked this very important fact.
My system could be expanded to legal denizens which would enfranchise, potentially, even more voters. But your got so high on your self-righteous back-patting that you didn't try to even think it through.
I think you're very condescending towards people especially to the poor. And I think that has a lot to do with your privileged background and experience and nothing to do with living as a poor person. Please correct me if I'm wrong. I don't know any poor person who appreciates being told they are too stupid and poor to know how the government works.
So let's cut out the condescending talk and public-shaming from you for just a second. Let's just talk about it without all the useless condescension.
Firstly, why does this idea piss you off so badly? What are you really afraid of by this idea? And idea that is as old (from what I know) as Ancient Greek Philosophy. Maybe it came about even sooner but I am not aware of it. But the idea of ignorant voters being harmful and educated voters being beneficial is not a new idea and has been entertained for thousands of years. It is part of why Lockean Rights exist: to protect us from the oppression of the ignorant and harmful majority and minority. You already live in a system that tries to hedge against the risk of ignorant voters.
Let's start with actual research into this very topic:
In your righteous anger, you failed to understand why ignorant voters are harmful. The ignorance from voters hits topics such as common false ideas about members of the LGBT community (ignorant voters have kept members of the LGBT community oppressed for many many decades), Muslims, Jews, immigrants, unemployment rates, entitlement program spending, and so on.
And this research shows that the ignorance is independent of education quality, too. Even high-attaining countries like Sweden suffer from the ignorant voter, despite being the number 1 on the list.
And the excuse that voting after passing 2 proficiency exams is "elitist" is simply false. Voters must vote using ballots or voting touch screens which requires them to be literate to begin with. For those who are disabled, provisions are already made and those provisions work. Why act like this is reinventing the wheel?
My idea could expand the right to vote to children who take the time to educate themselves. As a kid, I was frustrated with ignorant adults. They didn't know how the system worked and just regurgitated political talking points that their favorite pundit vomitted instead of actually educating themselves and understanding American Civics. Many young people are just like I was. Why do they deserve to be silenced?
And in the paper I wrote on this, I outlined exactly how the questions would be written for such an exam to insulate it from the party in power who would load the test against their opponents (it would be difficult to pull this off, anyway, regardless of who is in power). Firstly, all the questions would have to be posted - first and foremost. Just like they are, now, for the Citizenship Test. I also outlined multiple ways to implement it including an option that does not disenfranchise any voters but enfranchises high scorers. This could include financial incentives like tax credits (imagine empowering your poor by facilitating political landscape proficiency and tax breaks). There are multiple ways to go about implementing such a system such as giving greater weight to high scorers, electing a panel of political scientists who manage the tests similar to how the SCotUS is run (but with voters coming from academia, the populace, and congress), implementing on the civic portion (which would be almost a 100% direct adoption from the immigration test we have, now), and facilitating measures such as purely secure electronic voting which would allow people to be certified and registered to vote all through an app or web app (similar solutions already exist in other countries - the US is just behind).
I think you feel like this exam is 100 questions long. It wouldn't be. It would be very similar to the citizenship test for both parts of the exam. We could run a pilot program with volunteers (who would still get to vote).
Do you understand that Trump would not have been elected in 2016 if this system existed? Do you also understand that it would push voters to know more about the candidates they are voting for? Why do you oppose an knowledgable electorate?