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Voting Exam

We're The Great Old Ones Now

18:13 / 22.01.02

We don't let anyone drive a car unless they can pass the test. No one flies a plane without a license.

You don't get to be a bricklayer or a plumber without studying.

But we let everyone steer the ship of state without so much as an 11+ in democracy.

Screw that.

So my latest cryptofascist plan is the Voting Exam. To prevent the election of morons, to generate an electorate with a sense of duty to examine the issues, or at least with a vague notion of what they are and what's been going on in the world over the last few decades...and how, for God's sake, Democracy is supposed to work and on what basis the rights we expect can be maintained...

Simple test. Verbal, even. I don't care. But no one should be allowed to drive without they know what a wheel is.

And for my next demand: I want to be Global Democratic President For Life, complete with palace, presidential sportscar and jacuzzi, and of course, honorary Scrabble with Emma Caulfield.

18:17 / 22.01.02

For those of us in Palm Beach County (remember election 2000?), this idea brings up the memories of a whole lot of jokes told at our expense.

I've read that voting is mandatory in Australia, an idea which fascinates me even more.

We're The Great Old Ones Now

18:19 / 22.01.02

I'd go with that. Excellent idea. You want to be enfranchised, sucker? Then you will by God get out of bed and go to the booth.

Fuck, yeah.

18:24 / 22.01.02

A small point; If any large groups picks something by majority voting, be it political leaders or the top 40 singles, you get extreme mediocrity. Doesnt matter if you've excluded half the population because of age/sex/intelligence or anything else.

We're The Great Old Ones Now

19:32 / 22.01.02

Interesting notion. Evidence?

Also: that might be something this would alter.

The Sinister Haiku Bureau

20:06 / 22.01.02

quote:
OPB sleeperservice
...If any large groups picks something by majority voting, be it political
leaders or the top 40 singles, you get extreme mediocrity....

which raises the question of having an exam of some kind before people can buy cds, a proposition which intrigues me even more....

I actually read an article written in the 60s in an old sci-fi magazine, Analog, which my dad bought some back issues of. The guy writing the article argued it was the perfect solution, although it would piss both the left wingers and the right wingers off equally. Thed left because it would disenfranchise immigrants who couldn't read, the right because it meant black people could vote.
if this was brought in, wouldn't it make the 'problem' of 'voter apathy' 'worse'?
What would the exam consist of? How would you avoid any iomplicit bias in the questions? Wouldn't a verbal exam allow the examiner to discriminate on the basis of hir personal prejudices- 'sorry, you can't vote, you just look too gay- I mean, no that answers wrong....'?
I don't know to be honest whether it would improve anything, at the very least you might get some interesting statistics in terms of, say, ' the regions with the highest failure rate were most likely to vote for party X'.

Personally, I reckon that the voting system should also include a section where people can say what they actually want done, at the very least, a list of areas of government (health, education, defence, etc) and be asked to prioritise them.
And the 'mandatory voting' system allows for the rather entertaining notion of 'the countries top ten spoilt ballots' which, as I understand, is quite a popular field of media commentary post-election in australia...

20:30 / 22.01.02

So what happens if you fail? You lose the right to vote? That would suck. It is a step towards a meritocracy isn't it. You only get to vote if you pass certain criteria. If you made it so simple that everyone could pass, then there wouldn't be any point in doing it. Isn't politics on the national curriculum anyway? So everyone who attends school does have to study it at some point in their lives.
It isn't fair to make voting mandatory. If someone chooses not to use their vote than that is a valid choice.

20:35 / 22.01.02

So how hard do you want to make the exam? ie. what proportion of the population do you want to exclude from voting? And seeing as you're excluding them why should they follow any laws you make? Because you say so? ('yes dad')

I like the idea of passing an exam to be able to buy CDs

What better way to encourage the napster effect & fook the music industry (but thats another story).

This is somewhat like the 'should parents be tested' thread. Yeah, there are some people who obviously don't have a clue & should never be allowed near a ballot box let alone children. But 'who are you to make life choices for another person?' is what it boils down to. Unfortunately it seems there are plenty of people willing to make these choices for others.

But then perhaps the sheep need a shepherd.

20:51 / 22.01.02

as an academic, who on a weekly basis sits through long pointless and utterly useless meetings in rooms filled with individuals (who, when one meets them individually, seem to be capable, intelligent human beings) i can tell you truthfully and sincerely that people who do well at passing tests can make shitty shitty shitty decisions and be amazingly fucked up as leaders.

the u.s. has been there and done this vote testing thing (primarily in the South, from about 1865-1965, at least). i wouldn't bring that back. don't think plato's philosopher kings are such a good idea. (now, philosopher queens i might buy . . . )

We're The Great Old Ones Now

10:28 / 23.01.02

Buk - how on earth is not voting a valid choice?

Regrettable Juvenilia

10:31 / 23.01.02

Nick - just one question: who sets the test? Or: who decides who sets the test?

Because surely the answer must be "the people currently in charge of running the country". Which means, essentially, that the people running the country decide who gets the right to decide who gets to run the country. In which case, you don't really need the prefix 'crypto'.

[ 23-01-2002: Message edited by: Flyboy ]

10:45 / 23.01.02

The thing with driving, bricklaying etc is that you can go on courses to learn the required knowledge and achieve the required skills. If you're going to test people, you really ought to train them first, it's only fair. So what form would the training take, how long would it go on for, who devises it and teaches it? Are we looking at 'civic responsibility' lessons in school, or what?

10:46 / 23.01.02

quote:how on earth is not voting a valid choice?

No one should be forced to vote. No one else should make that decision for them. If someone decides that it is not worth it then that is a fair decision.
It can be quite a damning one at that. Low participation in European Parliament elections is a constant pressure behind institutional reform and a constant stumbling block for those who propose greater integration.

We're The Great Old Ones Now

10:49 / 23.01.02

quote:No one should be forced to vote. No one else should make that decision for them. If someone decides that it is not worth it then that is a fair decision.So you assert. I disagree. Now come up here and kiss me, you big lug.

quote:It can be quite a damning one at that. Low participation in European Parliament elections is a constant pressure behind institutional reform and a constant stumbling block for those who propose greater integration.Bah. It's not damning at all. It's just interpreted as a lack of interest, a carte blanceh to proceed. You want in to the democratic process? You want to live in a country which attempts the democratic system? Then the price is voting. No argument. It's hardly a great sacrifice of time and energy, is it?

pointless and uncalled for

11:30 / 23.01.02

Why introduce a brand new test?

There are many tests out there that test our capacity for judgement. Use one of those instead, or many.

Lets face it, just because someone passed their driving test it doesn't mean that they will drive responsibly, it just means they can pass the test.
Just because somebody studies to be a plumber, doesn't mean they won't trade as a short cutting cowperson.

The test is moot unless you include a psychological profile to determine if someone will actually use their judgement making capacity. Therein lies a large problem, can it be determined to be in favour of a type of party to exclude people who won't be arsed to think about the effects of their vote?

Besides, I think that you will probably find that testing would be entirely unnessecary anyway.

If 70% of the population don't think before voting, then I would imagine that the proportions of those people's votes would be similar to those who do and thus the voting results are unlikely to change.

Just a 20 second hypothesis and not worth the server space it's stored on.

The Planet of Sound

11:42 / 23.01.02

Nick, I had this idea a few years ago and it was one of my favourite drunken rants; until I was persuaded otherwise by a considerably more thoughtful individual who asked the immortal question 'Where does it all end?'.

Tests for parents (...okay, not such a bad idea, discussed at length here before?), tests for being allowed to 'date', tests for the right to appear on 'Newsnight'... brrr. Alas has also raised a valid point about tests and those who excel at them above. Plus, who sets the exam papers? Is it more appropriate to know who's in the shadow cabinet at date X, or to know instinctively that you've been lied to consistently for years, and you want the fuckers out?

We're The Great Old Ones Now

12:35 / 23.01.02

Testing might make people think about it. It might make it apparent that voting is a little more important. It's seen as a chore right now and that's WRONG WRONG WRONG.

Alas, actually, is the one who's done most to convince me it's a bad idea, but I'm still not convinced. I know a number of people are test-capable, but that doesn't mean it wouldn't help with the others. It's a gesture in the direction of education.

"Where does it all end?" is the rallying cry of the anti-legislator everywhere, and can be applied to any law, ever. It ends where we say. That's part of the point. We make the world.