Even that doesn't work. I look at the reps from my own state. Cori Bush. A perfect combination of stupid and uniformed. Josh Hawley a perfect combination of smart and informed. Both batshit crazy. Both terrible. Hawley could be a prof in gov at any University in the world but he should be walking around with a handful of marblesInstead, how about applying some sort of criteria for people running for office? They are the ones making the decision to run. Don't know shit about the Constitution, politics, civics, economics, foreign policy, etc., as measured by a college-entrance level exam? You have to sit this one out, Sport. You could even differentiate the test based on the level (federal, state, local), and the location. Brad, you like standardized tests, and totally trust their results.
I mean, if you are going to trample on some voting rights, wouldn't it better to limit it to the people who seek to gain the most, as opposed to the millions of poor dumb schlubs like me who just want to participate in our civic duty in one of the few ways available to us? We can only serve on so many juries, you know.
Yeah, but my idea would at least be a gateway (pun intended for you) to even being able to be eligible to campaign. Heck, throw in some IQ tests, psychological profile assessments, and polygraph procedures, too.
Establish some benchmarks.
I have some ideas.
1) eliminate all D and R notifications on ballots. I suspect lower information voters use those more often.
2) eliminate government paying for primaries. I have no idea how it is constitutional. A primary is where members of a private organization vote on their leaders. Why should we pay for D's and Rs but not Kiwanas?
Winning a government sponsored mass primary confers credibility that should not be conferred. Take your pick, MTG/AOC does not deserve to carry that credibility into a general election.
If we return to the concept that only a small number of zealots chose MTG/AOC, and no one has their party marker next to their name, maybe MTG/AOC will find it harder to win in the general.
1) Like this idea for several reasons, most of all the Federal ( state, local ) government is not Ds and Rs and should not be controlled by political parties.
2) I haven't been wrong today...yet, but isn't gov. money only available to presidential candidates?
So, what's the "informed" test? And what do we need to be informed about? How often is that updated? Who decides?
You already note that there are a lot of misinformed people voting. How are we going to disqualify them? How do we encourage adding people who are "informed" who currently aren't voting?
Sorry...but it sounds like you are just seeking policy outcomes you like better. Maybe we should just revert back to "The King knows best"?
Marv addresses it nicely above, along with other people. And no gaming the system to favor policy I like has nothing to do with elevating the quality of voters. I don't think increasing quantity achieves that goal
We can't even get people to accept that results counted by machines and then further verified by people from the competing sides. How would you possibly believe that folks would accept a psychological assessment or IQ test from some pointy-headed elite. Them polygraphs are controlled by the Chinese...I mean Russians...I mean Venezuelans....I mean (insert current boogeyman for your particular political persuasion)!
Here's an example of some simple (albeit a little silly ) ways. The thrust is to be informed by availing yourself of a wide-variety of sources. It has nothing to do with favoring certain policies.
4 Ways to Be a Better Voter
Get informed and make better choices—or maybe you shouldn’t vote at all
Voters’ knowledge of political news varies widely, study shows | MIT Sloan
What voters read and retain varies by age, gender, race, and socioeconomic status — which in turn can influence politicians and policy.
I was just suggesting an alternative to disenfranchising all of us voters who may end up on the wrong side of the Bell Curve.
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anon_6hv78pr714xta
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I’m not sure qualifications and representation on the Supreme Court helps your argument or whether it is relevant to the electorate and democracy suggestion.
But how far are you willing to go there? The bottom 10% IQ have no rep in the court system. Should we appoint someone in the bottom 10% to “represent” them?
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anon_6hv78pr714xta
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You are using the term “represented” in a way that I don’t think you can defend because it would be impossible to implement let alone decide the dividing lines. Schools, for example, aren’t entitled to representation in the way you argue here, are they?
Nor are IQ groups.
This strain of argument leads to identity politics and quotas based on how you divide people up. I think that’s a bad road to go down.
I just used that to illustrate a concept, people who do not give a damn still deserve to have their interests considered by our elected officials.
I suspect there is a very strong correlation between wealth and engagement. Letting just millionaires be represented cannot be good for the unengaged.
We had a team building episode at work, a question arose about respect. Is respect earned. Some of us took the point that every human deserves a certain level of respect. Others took the view that respect is only earned. Telling someone they are too dumb to decide who can vote in their interest is a lack of respect.
Again, probably the majority of people who say 911 was an inside job can pass a simple civics test. A civics test does not solve the real problem.
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anon_6hv78pr714xta
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I appreciate and agree with the notion that for legitimacy’s sake—that is, to ensure the we reduce the risk of belief in the most people possible that the decision reached was unfair procedurally or colored by a conflict of interest—getting the most people to vote is important. (Which is why the OP here and the poll is so very important).
Regarding whether that actually results in the best candidates or policies, I think you’re wrong. For example, judges in states that appoint vs elect are better, on average, by a WIDE margin in my experience. And in a business setting, allowing a firm to operate via vote by every employee on policy decisions would be much worse than allowing the executives to make the decisions. Same goes for military decisions. Same goes for sports teams.
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anon_6hv78pr714xta
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Where did McM say we had to make that decision? All he said was we know we have a raft of uninformed voters and getting more to vote ( there’s an assumption here that most who don’t vote are actually more uninformed than those that do) doesn’t help elect better candidates or policies.
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anon_6hv78pr714xta
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Do you have a link re those wait times? That surprises me since I’ve never waited more than 30 minutes to vote and I’ve been voting since 1990.
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anon_6hv78pr714xta
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I’d be ok with that but you’d have to amend the constitution to do it.Instead, how about applying some sort of criteria for people running for office? They are the ones making the decision to run. Don't know shit about the Constitution, politics, civics, economics, foreign policy, etc., as measured by a college-entrance level exam? You have to sit this one out, Sport. You could even differentiate the test based on the level (federal, state, local), and the location. Brad, you like standardized tests, and totally trust their results.
I mean, if you are going to trample on some voting rights, wouldn't it better to limit it to the people who seek to gain the most, as opposed to the millions of poor dumb schlubs like me who just want to participate in our civic duty in one of the few ways available to us? We can only serve on so many juries, you know.
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anon_6hv78pr714xta
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No one said we are going to design a perfect test to keep only the most informed voting. This is a straw man.
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anon_6hv78pr714xta
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I think you are thinking of this in very binary terms and not allowing much nuance. I say that because I’m guilty of doing it all too often.
I’m arguing against the notion that having MORE people vote guarantees better outcomes.
I’m arguing for the notion that we COULD have a simple, neutral civics test to weed out fundamentally uninformed voters.
I’m generally of the opinion that despite those two things, wide electoral participation is an on-whole, good thing for legitimacy reasons. But I’m not dogmatic about this last point and could change and could agree with policies on a case-by-case basis that might contradict this provisional opinion.
No shit.
I find it shocking (disgusting?) that otherwise reasonable people would advocate for some kind of screening that disallows voting. Even in the abstract, the notion is antithetical to our form of government.
We require everyone to register ahead of time and (usually) confirm their identities before voting. Anything beyond that that makes voting inconvenient or difficult or cumbersome or contingent in any way should be anathema to any civic minded person.
Shame on you.
I don't know how to tell what a good outcome is. I assume a good outcome for me is my candidate winning, but your mileage may vary.
The thread was on the idea that people do not trust the elections, a conspiracy I do not buy. I don't think restrictions on who votes changes that. Which is why I keep suggesting a lot of people who buy crazy conspiracies would also pass a civics test. A lot of smart people voted for Trump who I believe is more comically unfit than Daffy Duck. I am sure others will say that about Biden, which is fine.
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anon_6hv78pr714xta
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Thanks. I guess I knew some people stood in lines for long hours. I'm wondering how prevalent that really is.
Does any organization track avg. wait times I wonder?
If I knew I had to routinely wait 2 hrs to vote, I'm not sure I would.
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anon_6hv78pr714xta
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No it's not "antithetical to our form of government." We screen for allowable voters now and always have: we do so by age, in some states by mental capacity, by citizenship vs. permanent residency, and in some states by felon-status.
Who can and cannot vote | USAGov
Can you vote in federal, state, and local elections? Learn about qualifications such as citizenship, minimum age, registration, and more.
www.usa.gov
Regarding shaming a person for having an abstract discussion about the requirements of democracy, voting, etc., well, I find THAT notion abhorrent. Don't hate the player, hate the game.
If you're going to dig in your heels, fine by me. Tell me who you're going to disenfranchise, and how. Specifically. Otherwise it's just a bullshit session. NTTAWWTNo it's not "antithetical to our form of government." We screen for allowable voters now and always have: we do so by age, in some states by mental capacity, by citizenship vs. permanent residency, and in some states by felon-status.
Who can and cannot vote | USAGov
Can you vote in federal, state, and local elections? Learn about qualifications such as citizenship, minimum age, registration, and more.
Regarding shaming a person for having an abstract discussion about the requirements of democracy, voting, etc., well, I find THAT notion abhorrent. Don't hate the player, hate the game.
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anon_6hv78pr714xta
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Maybe they shoiuld have got in line earlier. Or mailed in their vote - you can do that now, you know.
The who is the easy part; it's the how that's difficult. I presume a political scientist could create a profile of an AOC voter through questionnaires and then using both inductive and deductive reasoning craft a "competency" or "prerequisite" exam that would give rise to a disproportionate number of potential AOC voters failing same and thus losing their voting privileges. Maybe something like that?
There's the issue.
Who's to say that AOC, or MTG for that matter, are not representing THEIR constituents effectively? Who represents those voters in those districts if they all fail the profile of a deserving voter? Maybe AOC's district is made up of AOC's. And as scary as it may seem, maybe MTG's district is all, (GULP) just like her.
Thus, my idea of shifting all the criteria to the people running for office.
Forget voting. Section off some land out west, wall it off, and let them do whatever they want in it.
What if everyone had to wait as long as the longest line? Would we see changes then? It happens in more urban areas. I have a less than 15 minute drive to my gym. I pass 2 polling places with a lot of early voting times. I choose when o want to stop. Many don’t have that luxury.
Yup. I like looking at what the housing market is doing in places I'd like to relocate, and sometimes just random spots. In so doing, I'll peruse realtors' pages (largely awful blogs). More and more I've seen listed as criterion: a place that comports with your political preferences. People are moving to states that are more in keeping with their ideology. To what extent? Enough for realtors to recognize it and integrate same in their pitch.
These last elections have been marked in the urban/rural divide. Like to the point where the entire country is red and without names you can identify the blue splotches as cities, nearly every city in fact.
I hate government. But I like Soap's idea of larger regional governments - tho it may lead to more/bigger gov. Absent that, or even in the context of that, perhaps an approach that better addresses this rural/urban divide is what we need going forward. And I know there are two massive obstacles: 1) shared resources and 2) inertia, but....
So maybe it's not better leaders, but a more tailored, reflective delivery "system."
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They might, but with 50% not voting in general elections it is hard to know.
AOC's 2018 primary had about 30,000 votes cast. 696,000 live in that district.
GA14 has over 700,000 in it. MTG won 44000 in the first primary, 44,000 in the run-off, 229,000 in the general. There are a whole lot of people that never gave their opinion, especially in the primary.
