A near impossible literacy test Louisiana used to suppress the black vote

Those specific tests, in their context, are obviously racist.

But I believe that now that we have public education available to everyone we should have some basic literacy and civic tests for people to vote.

Also, provide no-expenses IDs for people, make voting day a national holiday, stop private campaign financing, make lobbying illegal.

Give free public transporation on voting day for those who need, but otherwise stop the idea that we have to convince everyone to vote, no matter how desinterested and oblivious to the issues they are.

The idea that people who couldn't care less about public life and their issues need to vote no matter what is completely stupid.

Voting is not only a right, it should entail a duty of being minimally interested on its consequences. Democrats love this because it favors their base demographics, but that's how you get a Donald Trump too.

Your implicit premise is that we vote for policy. Democracy works despite the majority not understanding much about policy.

One critical strength of democracy is that it allows voters to remove the current politician - even if that politician would rather not be removed.

Where would you pick your line? Small moves of the line change the size of the disenfranchised group.

And I have to admire your chutzpah of suggesting tests to create a disenfranchised group on an article showing serious flaws with testing... Of course you haven't suggested a single way to fix any flaws. I sincerely hope you are not working in any engineering role.

I don’t think it’s right to put any sort of filter on which citizens are allowed to vote.

Any filter immediately becomes a tool to limit the number of voters for the opposition.

We already have arguments over what should be considered a felony , gerrymandering county lines, etc.

Seems like requiring a certain level of education would just incentivize more attacks on public education

Isn’t “citizen” itself a filter? We have requirements for being a citizen, after all.

We even have a citizenship test, for those not born here

> Democracy works despite the majority not understanding much about policy.

Citation needed

> But I believe that now that we have public education available to everyone we should have some basic literacy and civic tests for people to vote.

What if you did not get the benefit from this public education? Now you're discriminating against the uneducated, who may have their own opinion on education policies that they should have the right to vote on.

While I agree that everyone should have literacy and calculus and all those other skills that we nowadays consider "basic" or "elementary", and everyone should have access to them, if not be required to go to school up to a certain age / level... you can't assume everyone can or does, through no fault of their own.

It's far from perfect but most democratic societies haven't collapsed yet. Yet, because project 2025 and its proponents are calling for an end to democracy.

> I don’t think it’s right to put any sort of filter on which citizens are allowed to vote.

No, but we should require proof that you _are_ a citizen. And no, a flimsy attestation that certain groups fight tooth and nail against periodic verification of (see the arguments that come up every time the voter rolls need to be purged of the dead, people who’ve moved, or to ensure that no one lied about their citizenship status) isn’t a good solution.

It is, but it's one to protect a country, else a foreign entity could, for example, move a million people temporarily to the country to vote for policies or politicians that benefit them.

I mean it would be a huge undertaking etc etc, but there's people and state actors with infinite means to do so.

I’ll believe that when it happens

Many states are in fact letting resident aliens vote in local elections now.

>But I believe that now that we have public education available to everyone we should have some basic literacy and civic tests for people to vote.

These would still be considered racist for the same reason a test like the one in the article would be.

Citation:

  Your implicit premise is that we vote for policy. Democracy works despite the ma. . . | Hacker News. (n.d.). https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41914604