No in the past black people here in America weren’t allowed to be educated or learn to read. When they gained voting rights none of them knew how to read well so the racist made a law saying you have to pass a reading test or some shit so they couldn’t vote.
You can’t just look at the current situation and make rules based on that you have to look at it wholeistically. Not being able to read doesn’t mean you are stupid. There are lots of reasons someone might fail a test but still be intelligent enough to vote and make a good informed choice.
You obviously don’t know the history of voting tests. In the US, tests were designed to be virtually impossible for anyone to pass, but white voters didn’t have to take them, because the rule was you didn’t have to take the test if your grandparents could vote. They were implemented in a racist way.
You want to trust the government to design and implement tests, that sort of thing is what it could easily lead to, whether you want it or not.
Between the 1850s and 1960s, literacy tests were used as an effective tool for disenfranchising African Americans in the Southern United States. Literacy tests were typically administered by white clerks who could pass or fail a person at their discretion based on race. Illiterate whites were often permitted to vote without taking these literacy tests because of grandfather clauses written into legislation.
Other countries, notably Australia, as part of its White Australia policy, and South Africa adopted literacy tests either to exclude certain racialized groups from voting or to prevent them from immigrating to the country.
The problem is barriers to entry. There are certain things like voting that should have bare minimum entry requirements. (Proof of ID, lack of felony charges) Because once you put in any requirement (like education level etc.) those requirements can be manipulated by bad actors. We already have low voter turnout in the US as it is, and people already try to challenge that in bad faith (looking at all the “stolen election” bs in 2021).
Putting requirements like education is just begging people to manipulate it and skew results (harder tests in some areas, obtuse questions, general “elitist” focused motivations)
The point is voting needs to be accessible to everyone, even if some of those people are “not smart enough” then we need to focus on educating those people, not stopping them from voting because of some arbitrary “good enough” line.
There are certain things like voting that should have bare minimum entry requirements. (Proof of ID, lack of felony charges)
IMO, felony charges are another tool of deliberate voter disenfranchisement, since the US justice system is clearly racist and has a shit ton of convictions compared to the EU (most countries, really - the US prison population per capita is one of the highest in the world). Lack of felony charges should probably be a requirement for being elected, but at this point they might start trying to use it for this, too.
I agree. I would actually like to see a 100% voter turnout from within prisons. Not only should we not strip that right, but it should be available for citizens while incarcerated as well. Seems easy to do.
Give everyone, and I mean everyone, a standard fifth grade test. It would not surprise me one bit if the highest failure rate of such a test comes from the large swath of redneck nitwits there exist over in America.
Who determines the test is at a fifth grade level?
Who will proctor the test?
Where will the test be administered?
When will the test be administered?
Who decides what a passing grade is?
Who grades the test?
Who verifies the grade on the test?
At every step there is an easy way to disenfranchise whatever people you don’t like. For instance: simply make the test only available at noon on the Monday before election. Make it only able to be taken at town hall. Immediately, anyone who works an hourly job will no be effectively disqualified from voting because they can’t take the test.
Now make the exam only available in English. Anyone who cannot speak English is now disqualified.
There are so many ways for literacy tests to go wrong, they’re pretty much only good for excluding people you don’t like from voting. Just let everyone vote and make it a mandatory holiday.
Not even close. And I find it racist of you to assume that a minority is somehow incapable of passing an exam.
No in the past black people here in America weren’t allowed to be educated or learn to read. When they gained voting rights none of them knew how to read well so the racist made a law saying you have to pass a reading test or some shit so they couldn’t vote.
You can’t just look at the current situation and make rules based on that you have to look at it wholeistically. Not being able to read doesn’t mean you are stupid. There are lots of reasons someone might fail a test but still be intelligent enough to vote and make a good informed choice.
You obviously don’t know the history of voting tests. In the US, tests were designed to be virtually impossible for anyone to pass, but white voters didn’t have to take them, because the rule was you didn’t have to take the test if your grandparents could vote. They were implemented in a racist way.
You want to trust the government to design and implement tests, that sort of thing is what it could easily lead to, whether you want it or not.
Yes I’m well aware of Jim Crowe laws. Before you can enact something fair you’re first going to burn down everything you have currently.
The systems you have right now are a dead end, and there is no way to manage or change that system from the outside. So first it must be destroyed.
Troll
I’m begging you to please read this Wikipedia article. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literacy_test
Video showing one of the actual tests from the Jim Crow era. https://youtu.be/6lor3sfk-BE
The problem is barriers to entry. There are certain things like voting that should have bare minimum entry requirements. (Proof of ID, lack of felony charges) Because once you put in any requirement (like education level etc.) those requirements can be manipulated by bad actors. We already have low voter turnout in the US as it is, and people already try to challenge that in bad faith (looking at all the “stolen election” bs in 2021).
Putting requirements like education is just begging people to manipulate it and skew results (harder tests in some areas, obtuse questions, general “elitist” focused motivations)
The point is voting needs to be accessible to everyone, even if some of those people are “not smart enough” then we need to focus on educating those people, not stopping them from voting because of some arbitrary “good enough” line.
IMO, felony charges are another tool of deliberate voter disenfranchisement, since the US justice system is clearly racist and has a shit ton of convictions compared to the EU (most countries, really - the US prison population per capita is one of the highest in the world). Lack of felony charges should probably be a requirement for being elected, but at this point they might start trying to use it for this, too.
I agree. I would actually like to see a 100% voter turnout from within prisons. Not only should we not strip that right, but it should be available for citizens while incarcerated as well. Seems easy to do.
Extremely close, because it’s happened before.
Literacy tests at the polls were used as a tool to keep black people from voting, often by handing them different, harder tests.
Then don’t do that.
Give everyone, and I mean everyone, a standard fifth grade test. It would not surprise me one bit if the highest failure rate of such a test comes from the large swath of redneck nitwits there exist over in America.
Who writes the test?
Who determines the test is at a fifth grade level?
Who will proctor the test?
Where will the test be administered?
When will the test be administered?
Who decides what a passing grade is?
Who grades the test?
Who verifies the grade on the test?
At every step there is an easy way to disenfranchise whatever people you don’t like. For instance: simply make the test only available at noon on the Monday before election. Make it only able to be taken at town hall. Immediately, anyone who works an hourly job will no be effectively disqualified from voting because they can’t take the test.
Now make the exam only available in English. Anyone who cannot speak English is now disqualified.
There are so many ways for literacy tests to go wrong, they’re pretty much only good for excluding people you don’t like from voting. Just let everyone vote and make it a mandatory holiday.
It’s almost like we’ve run this experiment before at massive scale in real world conditions, and that experiment yielded data.