Modern Civics

The problem with some sort of voting test is that it opens up the possibility, however small, of being abused to prevent people from exercising their vote. We know, from bitter experience, that given the opportunity, people will attempt to disenfranchise those whom they expect to disagree with them. If you're going to make this any easier, you'd better have a damn good reason.I'm not at all sure that ensuring people know the stated positions of a candidate are a particularly good reason, since it doesn't seem to have much bearing on their behaviour once in office, anyway.----On the seperate note of detention without trial - everyone seems to agree that it's forbidden by the constitution. 'Everyone', however, does not seem to include certain members of the government, nor lawyers working for them. And people have been detained without trial in the past - it was unconstitutional then, and yet it happened. I'd be wary of legislation which seems to support the idea that it's possible, regardless of the constitutionality of it all. At the very least consitutional appeals can take time - time during which Joe Suspect is sat in a prison cell or detainment camp.

Even better, why bother with voting at all? Your argument appears to be that you disagree with Abbot on just about every issue, which means that Abbot is wrong, which means that only idiots would elect. Since you already have a clear handle on what is right, we could just declare you Grand Imperator of Australia and let you make all the decisions alone (perhaps with the help of your wife).

Sorry for the snark, but it felt like you were ignoring what had already been discussed in the thread. There is a very good reason why qualifying tests in order to vote have a dirty reputation; it's because historically they have served as a way to exclude certain sectors of society from the political process. Intelligence is not an easy thing to measure uncontroversially - somebody has to pick a method, and such a method could easily wind up being used to try and include a particular sort of person.IQ tests as a requirement for voting would also tend to have the effect of excluding people worse off socioeconomically from the political process. Those higher up the rungs of society tend to have better education and better tools to advance their intellectual skills, and will tend to do better on IQ tests. When those who do worst under the way society is currently run are forbidden a voice in whether this is an approriate way to run it you have elite rule, not any sort of democracy.We also have to ask whether intelligence is actually that important, when it comes to issue of a democracy. People on both sides of every political divide are highly-educated, intelligent people - and they can't agree on how things should be done. The purpose of a democracy is not to ensure that good decisions are made - we don't have a method of doing that, because we aren't sure what the good decisions are. The purpose of democracy is fairness - everyone gets equal say.

Although, truly random additions to the vote total aren't really much of a problem, since they would be distributed randomly around the political specturm and are unlikley to influence the result. I think Jon is of the school that it's better to include this random noise than run the risk of excluding anyone who can make an informed decision.He's not particularly alone in this opinion. Several European countries extend the vote to all adult citizens, regardless of mental capacity.

I wasn't actually thinking about the Czech Republic, I meant 'we' as in 'humanity', thinking specifically about attempts to disenfranchise blacks in the US and Catholics in Ireland. There's only been democracy here for 20 years, and there's never been any sort of voting test, but if you want a local example of the weaselly attempts people try and use to disenfranchise those they dislike, look no further than the 1993 citizenship law.When Czechoslovakia split in two, the citizenship law was designed in such a way as to deny citizenship to many long-term residents of the country whose administrative address was technically in the Slovak half. Imagine being born in Texas, moving to New York as a child, then being denied US citizenship 30 years later because Texas seceded (or, in some cases, the same thing happening because your parents were Texan, even though you're New York born-and-bred). The people affected by this were disproportionately Roma and, lest anyone have any doubt that they were intentionally targeted as such, the was later amended to extend citizenship to some non-Roma accientally caught by the provisions.In fairness though, I think trying to force them to leave the country was higher in the minds of legislators than stopping them from voting.

Well, that's demonstrably untrue. What about Jon? Unless you're talking about the trivial cases of children and foreigners this is also not true. There are countries where literally everyone else can vote (with the small exception of those recently convicted of electoral fraud).

Disenfranchising felons is absurd and unjustifiable. Those mentally unable to cast an informed vote is a bit more difficult, but I would err on the side of allowing them to vote.The point I've tried to make twice now is that already, in actually existing countries, felons and the mentally handicapped do have the vote, so such limits are not an automatic given.