Should 'everyone' be allowed to vote?

[Maren]

Maybe your referring to another post, but I haven't viewed the previous page yet. See, my internet when I'm home at night is terribly slow, and CF's 'prettified' layout which requires a lot to load isn't, so for right now, I'll assume your talking about a theoretical alternative. As such, I do not disagree that such a test could easily be corrupted, but the point of this thread is not to offer a solution, just the problem. If people begin to realize that there are flaws in our system which they just don't often think about, then a solution could make it self available. If people go around not realizing the flaws in our current system, I doubt a solution presenting it self.

My problem is that I can't see a test as a real solution, there are just far too many problems.

I don't really see the problem here. So some people might be discriminated against. So what? I suppose it might not feel fair, but that wouldn't mean that the people who do test well would not vote well.

Just as by the same measure, there is no evidence that people who do well on the test would vote better than those who do poorly.

Yes, I had thought of this objection too. But perhaps with some oversight and debate this might not be so much of a problem. It certainly is a concern, however.


eudaimonia,

Mark

I guess my problem is that I can't see a workable solution that everyone would agree with. Republicans and Democrats have a tough enough problem trying to agree now, I can't imagine how they could agree to what should be included on a test. I mean, look at Florida in the 2000 election -- based on that you would start having arguments on what constitutes a correct answer, much less if the question were phrased properly. And that ignores the fact that there are different groups within each party that would each have their own thoughts about what is "correct".

So, since I can't see people inside the US agreeing on questions, I started thinking that perhaps the test could be created outside the US. Of course, most countries do not have the same political ideals as the US; and even the Western countries that have similar political ideals tend to be more liberal politically than those in the US.

The only test I can see possibly having much merit is a test of the candidates and what issues they support, with the correct answers being selected by the candidate's campaign. It would give the advantage of making sure that those who vote are aware of what issues the candidates actually claim to support. On the downside, it still doesn't ensure that the voter is making any true informed decision, as the complexities of the issues often make the simple answers required for such a test inadequate and misleading.

 

[Eudaimonist]

Just as by the same measure, there is no evidence that people who do well on the test would vote better than those who do poorly.

Obviously not, since the test doesn't even exist for us to gather this evidence. But we would at least in theory have confidence that they would be better informed voters than the average voter. This might count for something, even if it doesn't provide any guarantees.

I guess my problem is that I can't see a workable solution that everyone would agree with. Republicans and Democrats have a tough enough problem trying to agree now, I can't imagine how they could agree to what should be included on a test. I mean, look at Florida in the 2000 election -- based on that you would start having arguments on what constitutes a correct answer, much less if the question were phrased properly. And that ignores the fact that there are different groups within each party that would each have their own thoughts about what is "correct".

This is a good point.

The only test I can see possibly having much merit is a test of the candidates and what issues they support, with the correct answers being selected by the candidate's campaign. It would give the advantage of making sure that those who vote are aware of what issues the candidates actually claim to support. On the downside, it still doesn't ensure that the voter is making any true informed decision, as the complexities of the issues often make the simple answers required for such a test inadequate and misleading.

Yep.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[Isambard]

I look at it like free speech. Sure--some speech is hateful, offensive, maybe even harmful. But the answer is not to restrict bad speech, but to encourage even more speech. And we trust that the good speech will counteract the bad.

Except its nothing like freespeech. Free speech wont decide where tax dolllars of my neighbour go or weather or not to go to war with country X which will kill several of my countrymen.

Some people don't or can't use their vote responsibly. But the answer is to encourage even more people to vote. And we trust that the intelligent votes will outweigh the uninformed.

Looking at America, this isnt the case. It seems the more democratic things become in different spheres, the greater the lvl of idiocy via third parties inferes with anything remotely productive.

We don't live in a perfect world, and there's not a perfect answer to every question. It's reasonable to set admittedly arbitrary but objective criteria for voting. Like being a citizen of military age. And possibly not an incarcerated felon. Anything else is too subjective. I just think the benefit of having more people vote will outweigh the drawback of some voters not being as qualified as others.

Objective criteria should only be the will of the potential citizen.


"But if you want to serve and I can't talk you out of it, then we have to take you, because that's your constitutional right. It says that everybody, male or female, should have his born right to pay his service and assume full citizenship -- but the facts are that we are getting hard pushed to find things for all the volunteers to do that aren't just glorified KP. You can't all be real military men; we don't need that many and most of the volunteers aren't number-one soldier material anyhow...[W]e've had to think up a whole list of dirty, nasty, dangerous jobs that will...at the very least make them remember for the rest of their lives that their citizenship is valuable to them because they've paid a high price for it...A term of service is...either real military service, rough and dangerous even in peacetime...or a most unreasonable facsimile thereof."

• Source: Fleet Sergeant Ho, Pages 29-30
• Attempting to dissuade Juan Rico and Carl from enlisting.

"Value" has no meaning other than in relationship to living beings. The value of a thing is always relative to a particular person, is completely personal and different in quantity for each living human—"market value" is a fiction, merely a rough guess at the average of personal values, all of which must be quantitatively different or trade would be impossible. [...] This very personal relationship, "value", has two factors for a human being: first, what he can do with a thing, its use to him… and second, what he must do to get it, its cost to him. There is an old song which asserts that "the best things in life are free". Not true! Utterly false! This was the tragic fallacy which brought on the decadence and collapse of the democracies of the twentieth century; those noble experiments failed because the people had been led to believe that they could simply vote for whatever they wanted… and get it, without toil, without sweat, without tears."

• Source: Lt. Col. Jean V. Dubois (Ret.), Page 93

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Starship_Troopers

Such a model is already outlined in Heinlein's novel, Starship Troopers.