Ethics of who gets to vote

For the longest time democracy was a matter for QUALIFIED people to decide policy. At the start of the US only free white land owning men over a certain age where deemed qualified to vote on representatives for government. Why? Because the founders didn't trust the ordinary people to vote rationally. With people like George Bush and Arnold Schwarzenegger getting voted in on name recognition alone it would seem that their fears were well founded.

Let me tell you about my brother to show the problem more clearly. My brother has varies mental problems, one effect of these problems is that he believes just about everything he hears. In the presidential election he voted for McCain because he heard that Obama was born in Kenya, wanted to start a world war, and was secretly a Muslim. It's worth noting that he voted for Kerry because he believed that Bush was a reptile alien. Now consider this, his vote is equal to yours.

Clearly the founders original criteria was flawed but this brings up the question, who is qualified to vote? Should we simply allow EVERYONE an equal vote?

Arkanin said:

If most people are idiots, your goose is cooked. Most people are idiots. QED.

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That is the general idea in the OP, yes. Note that only MOST people are idiots though, some are not, so how do you tell the difference from a democratic point of view and further more, do you do anything about it?

HighwayMan said:

Don't be dissing on Arnie. He's actually doing a good job. And besides - it's worth it just for the name "Governator".

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Maybe, but you have to admit that if he wasn't in movies he would never have been elected.

But in all seriousness, it's a double-edged sword. You feel that all people should have the vote, but than again it is clear that many simply do not apply adequate reasoning to their votes.

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That was the fear of the founding fathers.

Maybe there should be a comprehension test all need to be able to pass. In fact, I don't understand why there isn't. You may argue it isn't fair, not everyone has the same education or opportunities in life, but that's how society judges everything. Students are judged on tests and performances that don't take personal difficulties into account, people are picked for jobs based on degrees that no one cares that others weren't wealthy enough to get.

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Raelians, the alien cult, believes in having an IQ test requirement for voting, with weighted votes for people with higher IQs. This has the same problem as any type of qualification test, the people writing the test can affect who gets to vote. Things like word usage can affect the test results in predictable ways. In many ways it's the same problem as jerrymandering. The people in charge of setting up the system have more power then they should. If that problem could be solved then maybe a test based system might work.