Test Voters

The petition is entitled introduce a competence test that individuals must pass before they are permitted to vote in elections and the explanatory notes say

"The current process of democracy, allowing every citizen to vote regardless of understanding or intelligence, is far from ideal. The process allows charismatic individuals (and politicians) to generate a large following amongst the populace with shallow, poorly thought-through policies that do not stand up to detailed scrutiny. The process also breeds apathy among highly-educated voters who feel their views will be outweighed by a mass of voters with a poor grasp of the issues, having been seduced into voting for the high-profile individuals. We propose a mandatory test to be completed by every subject of the land, to show competence in the understanding of basic politics and governance before being permitted to vote in elections."

Mmm, yummy, Jim Crow laws ...

Cards on the table: I am one of the "highly educated" voters who feels (as I posted in Cut the Knee-jerk Law-making just a few hours ago) that their views are outweighed by a mass of voters with a poor grasp of the issues.

I still don't think this is any approximation of a good idea. I made fleeting reference to things of this nature in the post about Reggie von Zurbach, regarding a petition that wanted people to pass an English/Welsh language test before being allowed to vote.

Even if one accepts the concept that people have to be "worthy" to be allowed to vote, actually testing this "worthiness" is bound to open an enormous can of controversial worms. Even if you've decided that people have to be "competent in the understanding of basic politics and governance", you're never going to get agreement on a test that successfully measures this. So it's hopelessly impractical on that level.

But in any case, why do I have any right to say who should or should not have any right to vote? I might say that Person X has no right to vote because they are ignorant and credulous and knee-jerking voting because the Sun's told them to - but they might say that I have no right to vote because I'm a do-gooding liberal idiot. And who is to say that I am more right than them? Obviously in my opinion I am right and they are wrong - but why should my opinion count for more than theirs? Especially when there are (we seem to be assuming) so many more of them than of me?

And most of all, of course - tests like this can become the thin end of the wedge for bigotry - racism and other forms of unacceptable discrimination can be cunningly hidden and practised by this sort of test. That has to be the biggest danger with this sort of thing. Potentially, very nasty indeed.

No. Being democratic means giving everyone a say, irrespective of their ignorance or other idiocy.