I think people should be required to take free, standardized, peer reviewed, fail-able, in person civics and humanities tests before being allowed to vote.
If you fail the tests, you don’t get to vote.
If you cannot agree with the majority of official historians about what really happened in the past, you are not informed enough to decide the future.
The last decade of American politics have shown that voting is intensely serious. It should not be taken so lightly as to allow barely adults or barely literate people to decide the fate of us all.
I know. I know that’s dangerous. I know that’s easy to get wrong and make something worse. I know that could be turned into an even more elitist society.
Access to information has never been cheaper and more available than it is today, so the elitism part is dispensed with.
I want it peer reviewed and standardized, and maybe even overseen by an international ethics board. That dispenses with a lot of the other problems.
In conjunction with ranked choice voting, I don’t see a better way.
We didn’t get here by being deliberate and gate keeping power.
We got here by being naive and letting power run amok.
Let’s be more deliberate and gatekeep power more. For all of us.
I think there’s an important distinction between making voting accessible and ensuring that voters understand the institutions and decisions they’re being asked to influence.
We already accept that voting eligibility can be subject to legal qualifications, although the reasons for those qualifications differ. (I.E. children, people deemed legally mentally incompetent, US Residents who aren’t US Citizens, convicted felons in many states, people still serving prison sentences in many states, etc etc.)
My question is whether civic competence should have any place in that discussion.
If someone cannot explain the basic structure of government, distinguish established historical facts from misinformation, or demonstrate a basic understanding of the economic and political systems affected by elections, what consequences does that have for democratic decision-making?
You wouldn’t give someone a gun without them knowing how they work or what happens to people when they shoot them…
So why give them the power to decide which man controls all the people with guns in the whole government when they don’t understand that power or the government?
I am aware that requiring a test raises serious concerns about discrimination, abuse, and the right to political representation. But I think those concerns deserve examination alongside the consequences of widespread civic ignorance.
Even if we disagree about restricting eligibility, can we at least agree that improving civic knowledge is essential to a functioning democracy?
And that maybe civic knowledge should be required in schools, or in adult life perhaps before accepting Jury Duty or something… or at some point in a citizen’s existence before they step into a voting booth?