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Fuck no. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literacy_test
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.
The problem there is the administration of the tests, not the tests themselves.
you think the current racist rich people wouldn't be racist and rich if we introduced an exam to the voting process?
Brazil had something like that in the early republic days, only literate people could vote. Needless to say, only the robber baron elites kept getting elected, also thanks to the significant amount of fraud that happened. "The election is won during the counting"
Good point, maybe the idea works better in theory than practice. Haha
Yeah it sounds fun unless you have any awareness of how this actually worked out when it was used in the past. Fully not okay.
You mean tests that were designed to ensure that only "the right people" were able to pass them. As well as a grandfather clause that exempted all of those right people (in modern times there would likely be a voter roll purge that would somehow lose most liberal voters while miraculously keeping all of the conservative ones).
Even if you assumed the test successfully filtered out an educated voterbase, it would take all but five seconds for X party to cheat their exams, kind of like the "grandfather law" which essentially bypassed jim crow era literacy tests for everyone who was white.
Even if you assumed the test successfully filtered out an educated voterbase
"Educated" is already doing some heavy lifting. What education are you demanding voters possess?
Because I've had an earful about "Marxist Professors corrupting our youth!" for my entire life. I doubt conservatives would consider any kind of liberal exam a legitimate test of voting aptitude.
Meanwhile, there's enough jingoism and nationalism in our education system already, such that I could see an exam question "Which religious extremist sect was responsible for 9/11? Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists" or "Is an individual with XY chromosomes a man or a woman?" that's a bit... loaded? Especially when administered right before a national election.
InB4 the Non-Voters just start doing the Wilmington Massacre repeatedly.
Check your history books about what happens when the majority of the population has no political voice. Things get ugly.
Still trying to figure out what happened in the second frame.
Except the candidates would all be garbage anyways haha
Candidates being all garbage is exactly what you'd expect when they're just pawns for the people actually running the government (i.e. owners of big corporations).
Since they're shit, they're not popular and can't achieve much on their own. When they're not useful anymore they can be blamed and replaced by the next puppet.
Of course they're also shit, exactly because they're in the pocket of the very wealthy. In the US it seems even impossible to gain any significant position without their blessing.
It's not all lazy and slow-witted voters, the media presents the news as if we all had a degree in government. That's apparently what they've put in as a filter but it only allows the worst of the bunch to fly by the seat of their pants, getting their vote from impressions and gut feelings.
This is always shot down because eventually someone in control will change the test to introduce bias in their favor.
But, what if: Make there be one concrete, completely unchangeable rule. The test must be a math question.
No hypothetical story to make the question 'relevant' (E.g. Bob and Alice each have x and y ... calculate z). Just raw math.
There is no biasing a math question.
Perhaps an integral or differential equation with randomly chosen constants.
Yeah, it doesn't filter for civic education.
Yeah, people could prepare and/or give out targeted explainers for the type of question after first voting/mail-in voting day.
Yeah, it will still let some shitty people vote and deny some good people from voting.
But there is no biasing a math question.
Probably will still have more problems in practice. Big ones being making an 'unchangeable' rule, or it being made ineffective by changing the question to something like simple addition.
Not necessarily saying this should be done or is a good idea. Just putting the thought out there.