Yes.
Restrict it to people who know how to use paragraphs.
First step then is to realize that being a democratic citizen requires far more than just checking a box in an election every four years. Informing yourself with proper media, or, for US elections, sifting through what passes as press in your country, is also still the minimum step.
But what’s really required is not about how to restrict the rights of other people who are making dumb decisions, it’s to get yourself involved into the political process. You join a political party and influence it to become reasonable instead of polemic. Or you join a citizens group like ACLU to watch the government. When it’s not about current US elections, and to get a broader perspective besides the limited US view, read media that are part of the fourth estate, like BBC news or Le Monde etc.
As part of that, you would try to change education, so that people who become future voters learn critical thinking and see through blatant advertising, and despise polemic. You find a way to teach people to evaluate what solutions could work and which don’t, and how to seperate ideology from fact-based scenarios. Slowly, if you do this on a wide enough scale, the intelligent voters will scorn the polemic-spouting politicans and elect those few interested in implementing good solutions.
Gonzomax…Your attempted satire falls a bit short of the mark, as does your ability to identify gender. She is a he.
Constanze….Thanks for your suggestions: first, about becoming politically involved, I believe I’ll give it a try; second, about changing our educational system, I admire your optimism. However, when the government is in charge of the school house and unions are in charge of the teachers, it appears that changes would be slow and difficult. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. After all, when has achieving anything worth while ever been easy?
No, the satire was right on. It merely is about degree. Once you accept the concept of taking the vote away, you have to find the dividing line.
The rich have started the process. They have empowered secretary of states in several states to broom people they think are likely Dem voters off the rolls. Florida gleefully purged the rolls. Ohio did the same.