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

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244 points rcarmo | 1 comments | 21 Oct 24 21:29 UTC | HN request time: 0.202s | source
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elzbardico ◴[22 Oct 24 13:53 UTC] No.41914288[source]▶
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.

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1. Cthulhu_ ◴[22 Oct 24 14:41 UTC] No.41914780[source]▶
> 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.