This idea was a throwaway point within an article by Thomas Sowell. It looked like a promising debate topic. Sowell says
So, should we encourage the ignorant to vote? Or, should we encourage them to stay home?
Ignorant fools have just as much a right to vote as you or I do. Welcome to America!!
LOVE the OP Title. Downright tasty.
I have an acquaintance who steadfastly refuses to vote. She just isn’t interested in the issues or the candidates (though she can sure as hell tell you when new Prada purses are hitting the market), she doesn’t care to stay informed, and thus she doesn’t feel she’s informed enough to make an intelligent vote. And she’s probably right.
What I find odd is that people look at her like she’s committing some kind of civic sin by not voting. Given her predilections, isn’t it better for her not to vote?
Certainly I agree with Tars in that fools have the right to vote. However, I also think that when people vote out of ignorance, their collective voice is at best useless noise, and at worst a serious clouding of serious issues (say, for example, people vote based on who has the best hair - don’t laugh, it’s probably truer than you’d care to believe).
I think, on the surface, encouraging the ignorant to not vote is a sound idea. However, I have doubts that it would work on a practical basis. For one thing, how many ignorant people actually believe they’re ignorant? I would guess the study that found competence levels of people inversely proportionate to their self-perceived competence level could apply to ignorance, as well. Secondly, if these people care so little for the voting process that they don’t bother to inform themselves, do you really think they’re going to not vote out of respect for the educated among us? Thirdly, I wonder what percentage of voters really are that ignorant. I would hazard a guess that those who are too lazy to inform themselves would be too lazy to go to the voting booth in the first place.
I think one good way to discourage the intellectually lazy from voting would be to make it less, not more, convenient. Not to the point where it’s actually difficult for people, of course, but I think efforts to get people to vote at any cost may be misguided. Make it more difficult to obtain absentee ballots, for example - make the person provide a written explanation of why they can’t vote in person, at least, rather than just give an absentee ballot to anyone who asks. There’s been an idea floating around about allowing voting through the internet, or on TV. That would be horrible - do you really want someone voting absent-mindedly during a break in a rerun of America’s Most Deadly Pit Bull Attacks? Or as an afterthought following a good, rousing porn search? If you create some sort of inherent time commitment in the voting process, the lazy and uninformed are going to be less inclined to vote. Will that decrease voter turnout? Probably. But how much are we really going to miss the vote of someone who votes for Al Gore because he’s so dreamy?
Jeff
With every right comes responsibility. The right to vote entails the responsibility to be informed–this is one of the key premises of democracy. So yes, those who are ignorant of the issues should not vote.
Proposal: along with automated touch-screens, we deploy an application that asks the voter to answer three questions correctly. The questions are chosen randomly from among ten submitted by Party A and Party B, and are intended to be factual and objective, and relate directly to the issues each candidate is running on. A person unable to answer any question correctly is denied the opportunity to vote.
Perhaps we could remove the age restrictions on voting as well under this system. Smart thirteen-year-olds could vote, while uninformed thirty-year-olds would be silenced.
I’m not offering this as a serious proposal, but as the springboard for further discussion. Why - or why not - use such a system?
- Rick
But there’s a crucial word missing from it:
"Should we … those who have not informed themselves on the issues to vote?"
Is there a word that can replace the dots other a synonym for “allow”? Maybe “encourage” was intended? If the argument is that ignorant people should not be allowed to vote, then you’re going to have to devise a method of measuring the relevant ignorance. A written exam? An interview by an appointee of the State? Give a satisfactory answer to the government’s question and you can vote; otherwise go home and study until you know the answer.
If the argument is whether to encourage people either to vote or to become conversant with relevant issues, I assumed that people were being encouraged to do both.
I believe the historical example is Jim Crow.
Besides, the problem of people who deserve the vote (whatever that means) being denied their rightful opportunity is a far greater and more common evil than morons wasting their votes through uninformed decisions.
Besides which, who determines if my decision is uninformed? If I had to match wits with any Sunday morning pundit, I’d never be allowed to vote. But I could out-talk half of my friends and family when it came down to it.
The truth is, no one is probably informed enough to vote. 
I think one objection could be that, other than for referenda, voters need not (hypothetically) understand the issues at all in our system of representative democracy; they choose “trusted” individuals to represent their interests in the various elected positions. (As an “issues” oriented voter, I strongly disagree with this approach, but I present it for the sake of argument.) Still, the minimum expectation for voter responsibility, even if one allows full faith in the representative, is some knowledge of the differences in qualification and ideology between the available candidates. -Perhaps questions regarding the candidates themselves?
Well, toadspittle took almost all the words right out of my mouth!
It is sad when uninformed voters vote for a candidate simply because they’re a Democrat, for example.
There’s no way, however, to fairly administer a voting litmus test. Nor should we, for that fact of the matter.
Yes, the notion of Burkean representation: you’re voting for someone to represent you and make decisions on your behalf, with the interests of the country as a whole rather than narrow sections of the electorate in mind. The problem is how to ensure that the representatives don’t pander to ignorance to win votes, and, as you say, how to ensure that the voters can spot such acts.
Yes, it was. If any mod sees this, and it’s not too much trouble, I’d appreciate your adding the word “encourage” to the thread title. Thanks.
An argument I expected to see is that the act of voting makes a person feel more like a part of the country. It tends to breed good citizenship.
Hypothetical voter A cares very little about the races in his electoral district. As far as he can tell, it will make little difference which of the idiots running ends up as his congressman, senator, and mayor. He is not interested in a state constitutional change, nor as a renter, does he think he cares about a property tax increase. However, he deeply cares about an initiative to fund a sports stadium by raising sales taxes. He’s done the reading, he knows the rhetoric on both sides as to what effect it will have on him, on commerce in the area, on the community at large. He wants to cast his ballot on this issue, and that issue alone. Are you saying that he should be denied the right to do that because he fails to answer three questions correctly on ballot issues that he doesn’t care about nor will vote on? Or are you asking Hypothetical Voter B, the well-informed perfect voter we all wish everyone was, to answer three questions about all 20-something issues on his ballot?
Not to mention the points brought up by others, earlier in the thread.
This is an issue that always comes to mind whenever I see celebs or whoever encouraging people to go out and vote. They should encourage people to be get informed and then vote.
But one needs to understand the issues to make an informed choice on who to support, because you’re (theoretically) voting on someone who has the same opinion on the issues as you do (I assume that’s what you mean by “trusted individuals”). If you don’t vote for people based on issues, what’s left? Good sense of humor? Intelligence? Looks good in a suit? You could blindly vote along party lines, but this is based on the false premise that the worst possible person that is in your party is still better than the best possible person in any of the opposition parties. Basically, if your vote isn’t tied in some way to the issues, then your vote is uninformed, and essentially white noise.
Jeff
Yes, I’d like to believe (in fact I do believe) that to be the case. I’m certain that the opposite version is correct - that if you deny people the vote they will not behave like a good citizen. Why should they? Except in so far as revolution is an act of citizenship in itself.
I believe the phrase you’re looking for would be “literacy test”.
http://jodyb.net/school/literacy.html
And then there’s the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
http://www.votescount.com/votrights.htm
So, the reason why we can’t have something like this–
–is because the Voting Rights Act of 1965 specifically prohibits it.
And this–
–is also contrary to the spirit of the Voting Rights Act, whose purpose was to make it easier to vote, not more difficult. Requiring applicants for absentee ballots to write a letter, rather than simply fill out an application, would be a kind of literacy test.
And anyway, getting hold of an absentee ballot isn’t that easy. They may “just give them out to anyone who asks”, but first you have to ask, which process requires a certain level of “smarts”.
http://www.absenteeballot.net/Illinois.htm
Then you have to fill the dang thing out. Granted, it’s not a “letter”, but it does require a certain level of language competence.
http://www.voterinfonet.com/images/ABSappE.pdf
And, er, am I correct in assuming that everybody in this thread would be opposed to the practices of earlier, less politically correct eras? 
http://dig.lib.niu.edu/message/ps-1840.html
So this time it was the Democrats who were the poor picked-on victims of the evil ad campaign…
Well, OK. But you have to vote for who I tell you to in the next election.
Not in California. You get your sample ballot in the mail, and on the back is a little thing that says, “If you want an absentee ballot, send this in”. It already has your name and address on it, you just need to sign it and stick a stamp on it.
Generally speaking, DDG, I agree with your sentiments, and perhaps you’re correct on tha absentee ballot issue, but I still maintain making the voting process ever-easier is not always wise. The easier it is, the more of the lowest-common denominator you attract (by which I mean, uneducated voters), and I don’t think that’s a good thing. If more voters is necessarily better, regardless of whether or not the voters know what they’re doing, than we may as well let our pets and children vote, too. There’s a minimum voting age for a reason, after all.
Jeff