Voting Test -- Fuzzy Age Boundary

Yes, a voting test, hear me out. I’ve noticed a lot of people having an issue with the voting age of 18, some say too low, some say too high. So my idea: a fuzzy boundary, have a range of a few years; we’ll say 16-21 (though in reality, 18 is max because otherwise we need to pass an amendment). The idea is that there would be a basic politics test – more or less just things like how the government functions, and the basic effects of certain laws, amendments, or judicial tests. More or less what you’d get as a Final in a good AP or College US Government course (plus maybe a few questions about geography or more broad questions on how close allies’ governments work). I want to say fact-based questions on current events, but in my opinion that invites political bias too heavily.

The idea is that at the lowest age, you’d have to be amazingly well informed to pass, you’d need very high marks (>90% or so on the test), but year by year the percentage needed to pass is lessened, until a few years later you can register to vote with no test. So for 16-21 it may look like 15-: Can’t take test, 16: 90%, 17: 75%, 18: 50%, 19: 25%, 20: 10%, 21+: Auto-pass/no test needed. So 16 year olds who are really into politics can strive to take the test and pass so they can make a difference, 18 year olds who kind of want to have a say can just study up a little, and those who aren’t too opinionated either way can just wait a few years until they’re 21.

I’d support this for other “hard age limit” things too, to keep the age boundary from being too arbitrary. Drinking age could have some criteria (though maybe not a test, maybe a more background check-ish thing, perhaps things like grades, criminal record, community service done etc). Age of consent would probably be too hard to work out a scheme for, so I don’t think I’d have a fuzzy requirement for that, I think Romeo and Juliet Laws are probably good enough.

Thoughts? Don’t crucify me too hard…

It’s got all the same problems as any other voting test, just to a lesser degree. Who decides what questions go on the test, and what’s their motivation for those questions?

Would love to see this happen. I might actually would have been able to vote last year then.

That’s why I said a test like an AP/College US Government course. Hell, get the same board together that writes the AP US Government AP Test. For all I care, always use the last year’s AP Gov test (minus the written questions). Will there be bias? Sure, but it will be immensely minimized. The bias is why I don’t support a flat test for all ages to vote period, but I think the minor bias is an acceptable tradeoff for smudging the boundary a tad.

ETA: And 16-21 will never happen, though maybe 15-18 could work (with 15 needing a really high percentage to pass, 18 being autopass). That way we’re not taking away anyone’s rights, we’re just giving people a privilege they wouldn’t normally have if they work to earn it.

If you cant pass the test why do you get to automatically vote when you reach 21? Why are you more entitled at all to vote when you can’t do better as you get older?

And why would you do this at all? What problem does it resolve?

It attempts to reconcile that all citizens have the moral right to vote with the reality that any hard boundary is ultimately arbitrary. It attempts to blur the boundary in a non-random merit-based fashion. I think hard boundaries are a problem because ultimately there’s rarely a great argument for why you picked THIS age and not THAT age. This attempts to minimize that problem as much as possible by giving those who are interested an avenue to prove that they’re able before they’re capable of handling a responsibility usually reserved for those more mature.

Like I said, I’d support it for drinking age, and other age-based rights and responsibilities as well (albeit not necessarily a test in all cases).

Really, in an ideal world I’d support an all-ages pass-once-always-vote test, but due to history and the fact that the world is not ideal, I don’t trust such a thing to not backfire horribly.

Poll tests are bad.

Care to be more substantive? I’d agree with you if it were a test all people must pass. I don’t agree if it’s a test that simply allows a privilege to be granted slightly earlier than normal.

It’s going to be real hard for all those dead and illegal immigrant voters to vote if you try restricting them in any fashion.

Right, because I’m sure the number of fraudulent registered voters under 18/21 is immense.

Simple, get rid of age restrictions entirely. My six year old doesn’t give two hoots about politics, but if he suddenly gets really interested in government and politics in the next few years, why not let him vote in 2016 when he’s 10?

I see no reason to limit the vote to specific ages. There are so many ignorant adults that vote for the guy with the coolest name or best hair that a few precocious children voting won’t change anything for the worse, and might make it better.

Kids are more likely to vote for the candidate their parents support, the younger they are. Until a person is legally allowed to establish independence from their parents (which includes *ideological *independence), I think it’s a bad idea.

This would also become yet another stratification based on socioeconomic status and race, which could lead to problems with equal representation. 16-year-olds in rich white neighborhoods would take advantage of this at close to 100%. How many in poor black neighborhoods are going to do the same?

A nation ends up with the representation they deserve. There is no requirement to choose a candidate based on intelligent reasons. If a majority of the country wants to vote for someone based on their stance on abortion or their haircut, then we deserve to be represented that way. It’s not fair to say smart people get more of a say than dumb ones, not when 50% of our population is of below-average intelligence.

You can’t possibly imagine that a large family with 10 kids who are all instructed to vote Republican might create a problem?

They changed the law just in time for me to vote at the age of 18. The main reason they changed the law was that 18 year olds were dying in Vietnam without the right to help choose the government that was deciding our fates. There were other reasons, but this was the strongest, and most repeated. I can’t see any reason to change the voting age unless there is an obviously good reason.

What about kids with IEPs? Their school tests are often modified. Would this test be modified, too, and who would do it and make sure it follows the IEP?

Kids from wealthier schools are going to be able to vote years before kids from crappy schools. And that’s assuming the tests are actually fair. Based on history, I doubt they will be in the least.

The problem is the same as the old literacy poll tests. Implementation is also a problem. Until and unless we can guarantee everybody, regardless of socioeconomic standing, has access to a sufficient education to pass the exam at 15 (or 16 or whatever) and that the exam itself is given in such a way not to be an economic burden to the test takers, it’s going to end up a smaller but similar practical method of disenfranchising some potential voters.

While the motivation may be noble, the practical effect will be to give a bump to people higher up the socioeconomic ladder. It simply leads to institutionalized disenfranchisement. Sure, they might be able to vote anyway when they reach 21, but it just makes it less likely they will and simply gives a leg up to wealthier people - who don’t really have an existing problem voting.

Right now, nobody cares much about the content of AP US government tests, since there really isn’t much at stake for them. But if the tests were to become the basis for enfranchisement for a nonnegligible part of the population, you can bet that politicians would be taking a very strong interest in them all of a sudden.

Any potential good by your idea…(which I question what benefit there is) would open a pandoras box of legal quagmire which isn’t worth it. The age test is the best test for our society.

No. Why is it a problem? Nobody is forced to vote a particular way and the ballots are secret.

Why is it any different when those kids are 18 and older? Do you really think parental influence ends at age 18? Why is it any different when the union tells their workers to vote Democrat? Or when the Young Conservative Club members all pat each other on the backs for voting a straight Republican ticket? Or hell, when the President of the US gets on TV and tells you to vote Democrat? What policies are in place today to limit the influence people have over each other’s votes?

People have influence on each other. That doesn’t mean their vote isn’t their own. I see no reason that children are different in this regard. If they don’t want to vote, they won’t. If they do want to, they will, whether Dad told them to or Barack Obama.

People who are passionate about politics would just have as many kids as possible and presidents would be elected by legions of 5-year-olds who have no idea what they’re doing.

This is the most ridiculous bullshit argument I’ve heard in recent memory. Maybe in my entire life.