I know that everyone has the right to vote. But look, if you don’t know who your voting for, should you be able to vote?
All too often I hear of political and religious figures (Jesse Jackass) going to the lowest of lowest places, buying groups of people meals and such to get a vote for someone.
Look, if you commit a felony, you cannot vote. If do not know who the first president of the United States is, then you should not vote. Basic questions like these are all that are needed:
Who’s the current president?
Currently, what country do you live in?
Who was the first president?
Who was the 16th president?
What year was the war of 1812? (This will stump like 10 Million Americans easy, especially Florida voters.)
And for christ sake, if you haven’t adopted the English speaking language, well… you shouldn’t vote either. I’m sorry, but I’m willing to bet that Jesse Jackass tells non-english speaking people what to punch. Note: It’s not only Jesse though, I use him as an example of all others who do this bullshit too.
If such a test were given, Bush would’ve won buy with like 70% of the vote. I really believe that. Not that democrats are bad or anything. I just think that a lot of those that voted democratic were lied to with vote buying.
I’m very wary about any sort of test for voting, if someone is sane and criminals. One problem is who would set the questions? Unless you use the same questions each time(meaning that people would just learn the answers off by heart), it would be hard to eliminate bias in the questions asked.
Also, I don’t see that knowing what ordering the presidents came in matters, certainly not to the entent that it is required knowledge for someone to be able to vote.
Also, I don’t see why language should be a barrier for voters, after all, someone could get their information via newspapers, or radio, or the internet in their own language. They may be more informed than english speakers.
The only effect I can see for this would be that this would be in effect discriminating against the poorer enducated, and those who get fooled by seemingly trick questions. I don’t see why knowing any of the answers to the questions means you are less likely to have your vote ‘bought’.
Yes, but if you can’t answer simple questions like these, what are the chances that you know the topics at hand. There’s a test for immigrants to become citizens, and it’s in english, is this wrong too?
This isn’t fair towards poor people? I never said poor people were stupid. I know more poor people who know more than most.
This isn’t fair towards the uneducated? Do you want Joe Blow who thinks 2+2 is 10, and whom is sure it can’t be anything else, do you want him voting too?
I submit that the Mr. Bush and the Republicans engaged in “vote buying” in a much subtler way.
Namely: “Vote for me and I give you a tax break.”
Translation: “Vote for me and I’ll give you money.”
So, advocate testing voters for intellegence/knowledge if you must, but I humbly suggest you don’t base your argument on such thunderously sophomoric bosh and unsupported specious accusations. :dubious:
I’ve often wished that voting was restricted only to at least semi-informed people but unfortunately that path is fraught with more peril to a democracy than leaving it as it is. Even stupid people have a say in how and by who they are governed.
I look at it this way: Voter Turnout has been historically low for as long as I’ve been paying attention to it: Even for big elections like the presidential elections, not every registered voter makes it to the polls, and only a fraction of those eligable to register actually do.
Obviously, there’s a motivation problem here, and I’d be willing to bet that between the unmotivated and the motivated, the majority of the ones who couldn’t answer the questions proposed by the OP fall in the former category.
Q: What should I do when I see a user “trolling” at the SDMB?
A: Do not publicly accuse someone of trolling at the SDMB. Use the “Report this post to a moderator” facility below the “trolling” post. Do not reply to the troll in any way in the thread, that will only encourage the troublemaker.
Everytime I read the results of a poll of the public at large, I re-think the wisdom of participatory democracy. However, whenever I think of testing to insure that the voter is informed, I remember the anecdotes of my father.
He first registered to vote in a small town in Alabama in the 1930s. The registrar was a fat old man who had been given the job when the lady who had previously held it was fired because this was the Depression and jobs were for men.
He asked my father’s name, and he told him “Stephen Garland D____”.
The man wrote down “Stevend.”
My father corrected him, and the old man, cursing, scratched in “STEPEND” or something to that effect.
“And your last name’s Garlin? I don’t know no Garlins in this county…”
‘My middle name is Garland. G- A -R- L -A…"
“Oh hell, boy, here’s the pencil, you write it. I cain’t keep up with that…”
My father wrote his name. “Oh, you old man D___'s boy, farms up close to the Coosa County line, ain’tcha? Hell, you don’t need to go throuh all this, just getcher ass in there and vote. Vote for Hammonds!”
Later a young black woman came to register (even that early, there were some who tried to circumnavigate Jim Crow). Her literacy test:
"I need you to recite the 7th Amendment of the Constitution. No readin’ it. Can’t make any mistakes."
She couldn’t, of course (who can?), though if she had he’d have just gone on to the 8th Amendment, etc. etc…
Unfortunately, I don’t think it would be any fairer today.
If familiarity with the issues at hand was the issue, then why test based on historical events? It is also possible that someone could not be familiar with americas past because they do not come from america originally. Being from Britain I didn’t know Lincoln was the 16th president until I looked it up, but the order of the presidents is much less inportant than knowing about the presidents.
Also, I think that having immigration tests available in multiple languages is a good thing, although there is at least some justification for having them not as they are about testing the citizen for suitability to come to America, whereas voting is supposed to be about the people deciding on who is president, or whatever else.
I also never mentioned the poor, the word poorer was a modifier for the word educated (or enducated, as I actually said). Also, not being able to answer some of these questions is a sign of being uniformed, not stupid. It certainly isn’t the same as not knowing the very basic rules of maths, although I don’t think that mathematical knowledge is really neccesary to judge a fair range of issues. It does effect quite a few, and there are probably a lot of cases where quite a few people can be taken in by misleading statistics.
I agree with you Greenback. My examples were just that, examples. But this one:
Currently, what country do you live in?
Actually I wasn’t kidding with this one. Also, It does disqualify them from having a voice. Depending on the type of voting, whether it’s munincipal or national voting, you need residency for a certain # of days. Say someone voting in the USA says, “uh, mexico.”, I ask again, should they be able to vote?
Again, I’ll do a search in the mean time, but what is a troll?
American history – even history as recent as the 2000 Presidential election – suggests that there’s no voting test so simple that the party in power won’t find a way of administering it unfairly.
I didn’t know that residency criteria existed for US voting.
I think that someone living in England, but maintains their US citizenship should not be excluded from the democratic process. It could very well be that this person has a vested interest in the way their home country’s political landscape is shaped.
Now I’m wondering if Canada has the same residency restrictions…
I remember in a history class, on EVERY SINGLE TEST, the teacher put the same multiple choice question, “In what year was the Spainish Armada defeated?”, with the same set of answers in the same order. EVERY SINGLE TEST, there were people who still got the question wrong. I believe you underestimate the stupidity of some people. No offence, just the cold truth.
I think this is a fair question. There are people in this country that could not pick out a state in the US when it’s mixed in a list of other countries. There have been surveys that show this (sorry… cannot support this with sites, I’ll let a fellow poster pick up on this).
My 2 cents:
A friend of mine is applying to be a nationalized citizen. I read a copy of the US government test he is required to pass to be given citizenship. It is relatively simple, asking things such as number of congressmen, what the branches of the government are and their uses, term limits, and other details involving political policy. I seriously doubt that all voters could pass this test, meaning that the system they are trying to influence is not in their own understanding.
Q: What is a troll?
A: “Troll,” in the context of message boards and the like, describes somebody who is posting just to be confrontational or to raise hackles.
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I get it now, sorry if I was doing this. NurseCarmen, you have to understand, I was arguing my points. Hence Great Debates. But you have clearly broken the rules. Don’t like it? Go to the pit.
I OP, you respond, I respond.
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