I had lunch today with a co-worker, who is admittedly very conservative, and while we were munching on our respective lunch-time sandwich concoctions the topic of voter awareness as to the REP/DEM platforms surfaced.
George, as we'll call him, maintained that people should be required to show they are competent in the issues before voting. He specifically cited the example of low-income / unemployed voters who will vote for Obama just because they think he's giving handouts .
I argued that it's written into the Constitution and the Voting Rights Act that you can't, and even if you did, it would hit lower-income and those in minority groups harder than those in the upper-class, well educated, primarily White demographic.
The more this discussion went on, a strange thing happened. I started to think his end result was a good idea. Maybe not the method, and without the unintended consequences, but a good idea nonetheless.
More below the squiggle.
Now, for all practical purposes requiring a pre-voting test is fraught with problems, most of which aren't easily overcome given the system we have today.
On one hand, I'd be firmly against it, because it would hit the voters hardest who are in most need of protection and assistance.
On the other-hand, there are some rational reasons to do it. You have to take a test to proof you can safely drive a car before you can get a license. I can't play Gran Turismo for 3 hours a day, everyday, and think that constitutes informed knowledge of how to drive a car. Likewise, one can't watch campaign advertisements and listen to mainstream media (which slants to both sides of the idealogical spectrum) and expect to get the facts about where candidates really stand.
You can point to the Voters Rights Act and the 15th Amendment to say that nothing can impede a citizens right to vote. Well, the second Amendment says we can bear arms, but the government can still place restrictions on those arms for the greater collective good of society. Why couldn't those same types of restrictions come into play when it comes to voting?
Paul Ryan's speech at the convention this week was a glaring example of why uninformed voters are more dangerous to our liberties than any foreign terrorist could ever be. The fact that Ryan can say blatantly false and misleading facts and get away with it is because those people he's trying to reach don't bother to get information anywhere else.
Because of this, voter education is the single most important thing we can do as a country to improve the system.
I personally don't care if the Koch brothers throw $1 Billion into Super PACS to try to get their candidate elected. Likewise I don't much care if others do the same in support of Obama. I don't pay attention to campaign advertisements, instead doing my own research at what the candidate says and their past actions.
Unfortunately I can't rely on other people doing the same thing. So they make ill-informed decisions, which negatively impact my life and well being.
I don't really think pre-voting tests in the answer. Well, a little part of me does. My biggest gripe, and the point of this diary, was that pre-voting tests are a solution that doesn't address the problem.
It's hard to know, without relying on professional pollsters, how well we really understand the issues being laid out for us to vote on (candidates being included, since we vote on candidates based on issues).
If we can ever move to a digital voting system, having some questions that people have to answer before they vote, that will not prevent them from voting, may give us that insight. And based on that we can begin to address the issue of voter education and awareness.
Otherwise, people vote with their hearts and on hearsay. And while putting your heart into a candidate is great, doing so without the facts of what you are actually voting FOR hurts us all.
Sort of like getting into a car and heading out onto the freeway without the rest of us knowing that you know what the hell you are doing.