When Newsweek asked a thousand voters to take the official citizenship test a few years back, nearly 30 percent couldn't name the vice president, more than 60 percent did not know the length of U.S. senators' terms in office, 43 percent couldn't say that the first 10 amendments to the Constitution are known as the Bill of Rights, and only 30 percent knew that the U.S. Constitution is the supreme law of the land. Now David Harsanyi writes at the Washington Post that if voting is a consecrated rite of democracy, as liberals often argue, surely society can have certain minimal expectations for those participating. And if citizenship itself is as hallowed as Republicans argue, then surely the prospective voter can be asked to know just as much as the prospective citizen. Let's give voters a test. The citizenship civics test will do just fine and here are some of its questions, which run from easy to preposterously easy: "If both the President and the Vice President can no longer serve, who becomes President?" "There were 13 original states. Name three." "What is one right or freedom from the First Amendment?" "What is freedom of religion?
According to Harsanyi, if you have no clue what the hell is going on, you also have a civic duty to avoid subjecting the rest of us to your ignorance. To be fair, the contemporary electorate is probably no less ignorant today than it was 50 or 100 years ago. The difference is that now we have unlimited access to information. Of course, we also must remember the ugly history of poll taxes and other prejudicial methods that Americans used to deny black citizens their equal right to vote. Any effort to improve the quality of the voting public should ensure that all races, creeds, genders and sexual orientations and people of every socioeconomic background are similarly inhibited from voting when ignorant. As James Madison wrote, "A popular Government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy; or, perhaps both." "If you forsake the power of information," concludes Harsanyi, "you have no standing to tell the rest of us how to live our lives."
(Score: 5, Informative) by butthurt on Sunday May 22 2016, @01:37AM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literacy_test [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 22 2016, @04:58AM
Exactly. Instead of using fascist tactics to disenfranchise people, we (both government at all levels and citizens in general) should be educating people. The problem is with our schools and our culture, not with the idea that voting is a right, rather than a rite.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Monday May 23 2016, @05:21AM
Well, here's the question: If someone is illiterate, how informed of a voter could they be? yeah, they could watch TV or talk to friends... making them exactly as informed as the average voter today.
Maybe it shouldn't be a test of your random off-the-street self; maybe it should be a mandatory civics class, complete with graduation exam, that you must take before you can register to vote... given that the schools are clearly neglecting this duty.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Beryllium Sphere (r) on Sunday May 22 2016, @01:39AM
The idea's appealing at first. Voting is a job, people should be qualified for it, right?
The problem is that it's still too easy, even in the age of Google, to keep people ignorant, and thus disenfranchise them.
Imagine the impact of such a test on people who went to school in rural Mississippi. Then remember that our schools have been de facto re-segregated.
To make something like this work, and work right, there would have to be free civics classes available to the people who need them most. Come to think of it, that's a good idea anyhow.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Sunday May 22 2016, @01:55AM
Aside from that point, who exactly decides what will be on the test? The WAPO? That fishwrap is so biased I eventually just put it in my /etc/hosts file so I could avoid ever accidentally giving it traffic.
Another point is that even people who are illiterate and know virtually nothing about politics, can tell when they are getting blatantly screwed (sure they'll miss the subtler stuff) -- like being profiled or otherwise discriminated against, hassled by the cops, whatever. This WAPO turd is saying those people shouldn't have any right to have at least a chance at a say in their treatment.
Jesus, just one more reason why I'm glad I've got the WAPO aimed at a blackhole.
(Score: 2) by bitstream on Sunday May 22 2016, @05:19AM
Point is that their say in the matter only makes the situation worse because they make an uninformed choice too often based on sources on the pay.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 22 2016, @01:55PM
I skimmed the WAPO article, and I was somewhat surprised. I kept trying to figure out how on earth David Harsanyi was going to theorize that voters who are better educated and informed would prefer Clinton over Sanders, but he didn't quite make the case. If anything, I'd argue that voters who are more educated and informed wouldn't be so easily misled by bought-and-paid-for black "leaders...."
That's probably racist but whatever. I see it as further evidence that black communities are more disconnected and disenfranchised (as in disconnected from governance, so maybe I'm repeating myself) than ever.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 22 2016, @02:04PM
Of course its racist, you racist fuck. Out of all the bought-and-paid-for "leaders", you specifically single out the one, single, lone black one we've had, ignoring all the white ones. So its ok to be mislead by bought-and-paid-for "leaders" as long as they're white?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 22 2016, @03:04PM
Heh, I don't recall saying that. I also don't know which "one, single, lone" black one you're talking about.
There is something to being white and enfranchised enough to at least begin identifying which "leaders" are bought and paid for. I'm certain Clinton is one.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday May 23 2016, @01:54PM
Aside from that point, who exactly decides what will be on the test?
Presumably the same assholes in charge of gerrymandering.
Thanks for raising the point :/
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Tork on Sunday May 22 2016, @02:12AM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 3, Informative) by EQ on Sunday May 22 2016, @02:19PM
"calling it a Democracy" - there's your problem. Its not a Democracy, it is supposed to be a Republic of laws, where rights of the people (individually) are paramount, not masses of asses.
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Sunday May 22 2016, @03:42PM
it is supposed to be a Republic of laws, where rights of the people (individually) are paramount
The problem is that the majority appear not to care about "rights of the people" enough to seek out and elect representatives who will respect "rights of the people". Instead, they vote based on what they see on TV news. And because the major U.S. TV news sources all happen to share a parent company with a movie studio in the MPAA [pineight.com], copyright reform and other issues that make the MPAA look bad get buried.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday May 23 2016, @01:51PM
The problem is that the majority appear not to care about "rights of the people" enough to seek out and elect representatives who will respect "rights of the people".
Because anybody runs on a platform of "I intend to take away your rights," sure.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Monday May 23 2016, @02:53PM
Because anybody runs on a platform of "I intend to take away your rights," sure.
Politicians rated F by the NRA [msnbc.com] want to restrict the scope of personal firearm possession rights under the Second Amendment. But TV news is willing to cover the gun control debate because 1. the coverage brings ratings and 2. its outcome doesn't really affect the profits of other companies that share a parent company with the TV news media. Politicians don't run on a platform of copyright reform because movie studios would pressure their co-owned TV news media to portray such politicians negatively. Instead, they express support for or opposition to treaties and legislation with a copyright component, such as TPP, for entirely unrelated reasons.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday May 23 2016, @03:10PM
You're kind of making my point for me. Naturally they'll phrase it in other ways so it's not obvious.
Plus, most people don't get worked up over infringement of every single thing in the Bill of Rights. They only start caring when it's something that personally affects them. "First they came for the..." etc.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 23 2016, @12:36AM
A republic is a democracy. Representative democracy is still democracy.
(Score: 1) by dvader on Sunday May 22 2016, @07:29PM
Yeah, exactly but let's use it to our advantage.
Create a fake candidate who makes compelling ads and speeches in media but is otherwise obnoxious and utterly stupid. Let people vote but just throw away the votes for this decoy. So, the ignorant people loose their votes without knowing it. You could call it the Donald Duck candidate, or just the Donald... oh wait...
(Score: 2) by mojo chan on Monday May 23 2016, @12:04PM
Maybe the solution is to ban political TV commercials. Other countries do that, for example the UK where parties pulling a certain percentage of the vote are given free slots on the BBC but nothing else is permitted. In Japan they don't even get that, and even news programmes have to be careful to provide balanced coverage around election time.
The situation in Japan is interesting because candidates only way of getting votes is to go and actually meet people or organize local events. Their system has other drawbacks but in this respect it does seem to work.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
(Score: 2) by ilPapa on Sunday May 22 2016, @03:02AM
No, it isn't. It's absolutely nothing like a job.
You are still welcome on my lawn.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 22 2016, @04:41AM
Indeed. In fact, it's empty platitudes like that which make me think the Beryllium Sphere dude isn't yet qualified to vote either.
(Score: 3, Funny) by VLM on Sunday May 22 2016, @02:10PM
Chill its just a typo. Its a "con job". Opiate of the masses style.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Sunday May 22 2016, @05:42AM
No need to "keep people ignorant", when they freely choose to be ignorant.
Without ignorant voters, do you think either of the two parties would ever win an election?
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by bradley13 on Sunday May 22 2016, @11:06AM
"...it's still too easy, even in the age of Google, to keep people ignorant"
No, it's actually not. Anyone who wants to, can find virtualy any information they want on the internet. The internet is the great leveller. The problem is: you cannot make people care.
You are supposing that disproportionally many black voters will fail any such test. I expect you are right, but there is a reason for that: urban black culture in American cities denigrates education and responsible behavior as "acting white". What they actually mean is "participating in civilization", as opposed to being barbarians [amazon.com].
Even if someone slept through school, the internet offers them information on basic history, how the government works, who the candidates are, and so forth. If they can barely read, there are plenty of informative videos.
If someone doesn't care enough to find out about the basics, then the electoral system would be improved by their absence at the voting booth.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 22 2016, @01:39AM
Once the minorities fail the test or don't even show up since it's a pain in the ass, the entire process will be declared racist and evil and YOU, the submitter, will surely be hypocritically on the front line of the protests against it.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Francis on Sunday May 22 2016, @02:02AM
That's usually because the tests are set up specifically to do just that.
Even if you managed to do it in a way that didn't disenfranchise one group or another, you'd still wind up with serious problems like with the DNC favoring Clinton supporters over Bernie supporters. You talk with Clinton supporters and it becomes obvious very quickly that she is the candidate supported by the low-information liberals. I mean, quite literally at our caucus the reason for voting for her was that she's a woman.
Which isn't surprising given that the woman flips more than a short order cook at an IHOP. It's no wonder that low information voters like her because they can't point to her plans as those are going to be dropped completely as soon as Sanders does. And they can't really point at her record as that's been a complete embarrassment. Between her support of those get tough on crime bills her husband signed when he was President, the Patriot Act, Iraq War, her disastrous time as Secretary of state and the fact that it took her until 2013 to admit that same sex couples ought to have equal rights and the complete and utter explanation as to why she flip flopped on the things she did while holding steady on those nasty trade deals.
The GOP has similar issues where the only candidates that were possibly worth voting for were run out of the race relatively early and up until recently the only decent candidate was in like 3rd place.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 22 2016, @02:16AM
Its nice how you turned the OP's own rant about perceived stupid people into your own rant about perceived stupid people.
All we really learned is you both think someone else is stupid.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by aristarchus on Sunday May 22 2016, @02:44AM
All we really learned is you both think someone else is stupid.
But the true tragedy is that they both could be correct!
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Francis on Sunday May 22 2016, @04:08AM
The problem is that we're both correct.
Right now the only issue that really matters is campaign finance reform. Everything else is going to depend upon the politicians depending upon their constituents for support rather than donors and lobbyists.
And Clinton is by far the worst in terms of flipping for donors. She and Bill have raised $3bn over the last couple decades and personally made over $100m of that for themselves. There's no way that she's going to clean up the system. It made her ridiculously rich.
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Sunday May 22 2016, @03:46PM
Right now the only issue that really matters is campaign finance reform.
Agreed. This makes the DNC even more at fault for having suppressed Larry Lessig's plan to enact such reform. It appears the Committee likes having unlimited funds available to friendly IEOPACs.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Sunday May 22 2016, @03:57PM
It's beyond fucked up that you have large numbers of liberal, progressive, libertarian and conservative voters that are pissed about the fact that their congress critters care only about what the donors and the party thinks, but the parties are going to continue to fight tooth and nail against measures that are common sense and can be agreed upon by various factions.
We may disagree with why getting the money out of politics is a good idea or what specific groups to bar, but I think that the pro-union folks would be more than happy to have unions cut off if it also means that the corporations are cut off as well.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 22 2016, @04:56PM
We may disagree with why getting the money out of politics is a good idea or what specific groups to bar, but I think that the pro-union folks would be more than happy to have unions cut off if it also means that the corporations are cut off as well.
No. Not in my experience. In my experience, it goes like this:
Try it some time. It's amusing to watch.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Monday May 23 2016, @04:18PM
It's not the other guy.
Per George Carlin:
Do the scales begin to fall from your eyes?
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 23 2016, @12:40AM
That right there is pure, unadulterated sexism. If a candidate's race, gender, or religion is ever even part of your decision of who to vote for then you're a bigot, plain and simple.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Sunday May 22 2016, @05:49AM
Minorities fail the test already, right along with the supposed majority, on a daily basis. All across America, all demographics know the name of some old whore sisters, and want to either be like those whores, or want to bang those whores. Nearly all Americans fail at any type of civics, geography, science, math, or any other meaningful quiz, but they all know who their favorite whores are in the media.
This supposed "democracy" that we have is a failure.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 22 2016, @08:47AM
some old whore sisters, and want to either be like those whores, or want to bang those whores.
With Runaway, oh, dear, do we have to keep making the same point again and again, ad infinitum, that with Runaway, it is all about the sex? Either people having sex so that Planed Parantielhood can make the big bugs off abortingness, or Alien sex!!! or Troll breeding!!! EEeewww! Or about his own adventures in animal husbandry, which are illegal in all fifty states. So I think we need to ban Runaway1956 from voting, ever, in anything. Admins, I respectfully request that we respect Runaway's wishes, and remove his mod privileges. Obviously he is not sufficiently literate to wield them. Without wanting to be like "those" whores. "Those" Care to elaborate, Runaway1956? We all know what you are trying to say, but we tire of your incompetent attempts to hide your hillbilly racist homophobic misogynist anti-millenial bias.
(Score: 2) by Subsentient on Sunday May 22 2016, @10:02AM
You know he's right, right? Everyone I talk to has no idea what's actually going on in the world. It's sad, really. Dangerous as well.
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Monday May 23 2016, @07:56AM
You know he's right, right?
No, I do not know this. And if you think you know this, you also do not know this, since you could only know this if you wanted to do what Runaway so tactfully suggests.
Everyone I talk to has no idea what's actually going on in the world.
I would suggest cultivating some new acquaintances, people who can read, for one. And People who do not watch FOX News, I understand that is a major contributor to not knowing what is actually going on in the world. Colleges, start hanging out around colleges! But not in a creepy way. Maybe if you were to enroll? History classes? Couldn't hurt!
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday May 22 2016, @10:17AM
Very well - tell us what you know of these persons, one sentence each, please.
Jorge Carlos Fonseca
Catherine Samba-Panza
Peter Mutharika
Kim Kardashian
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan
François Hollande
Michael D. Higgins
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 22 2016, @10:52AM
Um, OK! Massachesuets, New Hampshire, Rhodes Island, Washington DC, and Ohio. What do I win?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday May 22 2016, @12:43PM
Utter failure . . .
(Score: 2) by linuxrocks123 on Monday May 23 2016, @04:26AM
I didn't Google, but I think Francois Hollande is the President (or Prime Minister or whatever) of France. If I had to guess I'd say the other ones are probably the leaders of the executive branches of various countries.
Your test is cute but also pretty meaningless. I'm quite well-informed on world affairs, but I don't memorize the names of foreign heads of state. Doing so would give very shallow knowledge only, so it's not worth my time.
Similarly, it's much more important to know the structure of the three branches of US government and the federalist system balancing the national government and the states than it is to memorize the capitals of all 50 states and the dates of all the battles in the American Revolution.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday May 23 2016, @05:46AM
You do pass the rather shallow test. You recognized at least one head of state, out of a short list of heads of state, and deduced what the list was. (Hollande was something of a giveaway - he's mentioned in the American press pretty frequently.)
Now, what percentage of Average Joe's on the internet are capable of doing that much? You state that you are well informed, which makes you an outlier. The average American? The only name Joe Average recognizes in that list is Kardashian, and he's going to try to remember if he heard any of the other people perform somewhere, or if they are members of rock bands.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 22 2016, @01:46AM
If voter ID laws are racist, then competence laws are cruel and unusual punishment.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 22 2016, @01:55AM
What about tests for people to own guns?
President Obama already opened this avenue after the last school shooting. Common sense gun reform in the sense of requiring mental evaluations for participation in the Second Amendment. Why is it so different for the right to vote, which is also Constittionally protected, albeit not as much as "shall not be infringed?"
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 22 2016, @05:55AM
You're stupider than fuck. Illiterate backwoods hillbillies can own guns for all their lives, and never hurt anyone. What kind of a fucking "test" do you propose? Wait now - let me guess - the "test" will be about the respondent's knowledge of current gun laws, and have NOTHING to do with actual gun safety.
The United States had gun owners before it had schools. Before it had colleges. Before the first university, the US relied on it's gun owners.
And, you want to "test" gun owners.
How about, instead, we test YOU. We need to see if you are in touch with reality at all.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 22 2016, @09:22AM
You're stupider than fuck.
As an intelligent Soylentil, one who can at least recognize "stupider than fuck", or at least thinks they can, surely you realize that there is a vast range of stupid both above and below the aforementioned "fuck". (Side note: I really do not understand how "fuck" is stupid, unless it is being performed incorrectly, or in the wrong venue, or with persons where recessive genes may possibly be a concern.)
Illiterate backwoods hillbillies can own guns for all their lives, and never hurt anyone. What kind of a fucking "test" do you propose?
Ah, so this is where your level of stupid specifically lies! Alright, now we are getting somewhere. First, as mentioned above, I do not think any kind of "fucking" test would be appropriate. Now I have heard that many "ammosexuals" have an "erotic" attachment to firearms, but this is really a secondary issue compared to those mentioned above, with direct relevance to sexual intercourse. But it really concerns me that your data set may be seriously biased. Yes, most illiterate backwoods (or worse, suburban) hillbillies can own guns for their whole lives, etc., etc.. But that is only because their lives tend to be rather short, statistically speaking. Tobacco use is dropping, even amoungst hillbillies. Swamp-buggies now have roll-cages, safety harnesses and positive flow breathing systems! Revenooers are not so much of a lethal threat, due to the new niche market in boutique moonshine, 100% legal, soon to be followed by Pigweed. So as all these fatal factors in the illiterate backwoods hillbilly lifestyle decline, I predict that the true fatal potential of guns will only assume a greater proportion. It will still be self-inflicted, toddler-inflicted, or very-angry-wife-inflicted fatal injuries, but these as a total percentage of hillbilly fatalities can only increase. Bless your hearts. And ya'll's guns.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 23 2016, @12:47AM
The right to own guns isn't "shall not be infringed", thats the right to protect the State as part of a well-regulated militia. You know, that entire half of the second amendment that conveniently gets cherry picked and ignored 100% of the time.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 22 2016, @01:59AM
(Score: 1) by Francis on Sunday May 22 2016, @02:04AM
Right, it's the implementation and the motivation that are racist, not the laws themselves.
If people were granted paid time off to get the IDs, a ride to get the ID and for the ID to be paid for, there'd be less of an issue with it. But, the GOP has already admitted that the point of the laws is to disenfranchise people that are more likely to support the Democrats than the GOP.
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Sunday May 22 2016, @05:01AM
And the difference between this and the history of voter fraud on the left [discoverthenetworks.org]...is what exactly?
I find it completely fucking INSANE that you have to have an ID to buy a pack of smokes, to buy a beer, even to catch fish, but a decision that will affect generations, can actually cause tens to hundreds of thousands to die in pointless wars, and take away our rights if chosen incorrectly? "Nah we don't need no steenkin IDs"...fucking insanity, complete and total fucking batshit insanity.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 22 2016, @05:17AM
None of those allegations were ever proven. They're accusations made to rationalize the discrimination necessary to keep the GOP competitive.
But when the matter does get investigated, only the GOP actually benefits from demonstrable voter fraud.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Sunday May 22 2016, @05:59AM
Don't need to be proven. The possibility of fraud requires you to protect against fraud. Your resistance to those protections is an attempt to rationalize away the accusations, necessary to keep the DNC competitive. You're not willing to give up one single fraudulent vote, are you? Let's start with ILLEGAL FUCKING ALIENS.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=illegal+alien+voting [youtube.com]
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 22 2016, @06:05AM
Don't need to be proven.
With Runaway, it is always about the, . . . Wait for it!! . . . grammar.
Let's start with ILLEGAL FUCKING ALIENS.
Oh, false alarm, it's about the sex, again. Illegal alien sex. This is a sub-branch of pron I had not previously been aware of. and regret that I am now so aware.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Magic Oddball on Sunday May 22 2016, @07:49AM
The source you linked to is full of a mix of mere accusations, cherry-picked lists of Democrats (but not Republicans) violating the law, numbers being cited without context, and so forth. (Can't you come up with a less slanted source than a site covered in way-over-the-top rhetoric & titles like "Radical Islam's Alliance with the Socialist Left," "Occupy Wall Street: The Communist Movement Reborn," and "the Left [replaces] moral categories of right and wrong, and good and evil with...race...gender...and class"?)
If you are (or anyone else is) truly worried about voter fraud, I highly recommend you contact your County Clerk and volunteer to work at the polling stations (aka precincts) for November. Having run precincts for the past 14 years, I can attest that the experience will give you a very different, much more knowledgeable perspective on the system.
As an example, I'll address one repeated "problem" mentioned on that page: the presence of dead voters on the rolls. In California, at least, the threat of people voting twice or voting-while-dead is handled through the check-in process:
I can attest from frustrating experience that the electronic signature comparison system is, if anything, overzealous... I'm signed up as a permanent absentee voter (my assigned precinct is rarely if ever the one I'm working at), but several times, I've gotten letter a few weeks after the election informing me that my signature didn't match the one on-file so my ballot couldn't be counted. :-p
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Sunday May 22 2016, @10:54PM
So in other words your state already requires photo ID which you obviously support so...problem solved? Its nice to find someone who agrees that having an ID to buy a beer but not to do a task that can actually affect the entire fucking country is batshit, so glad you agree.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by linuxrocks123 on Monday May 23 2016, @04:41AM
It's generally a good idea to read posts before responding to them. Reading something is a good way to understand what it means.
The voter must state their name, address, plus provide photo ID or 2 forms of other proof like utility bills & bank statements.
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Monday May 23 2016, @05:57AM
And YOU sir should pay attention to the arguments for and against ID as most of us would be perfectly happy with what you just described while those against are against ANY form of identification whatsoever.
So again sounds like we are in agreement, provide some sort of identification and you can vote...problem solved.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Monday May 23 2016, @05:28AM
It's the same logic as "OMG we can't possibly vet those domestic gun buyers" vs "Sure, we can document 'refugees' from countries that don't even have a government, let alone records."
FWIW, the one time I poll-watched, all 50 or so of the invalid ballots voted Democrat.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Monday May 23 2016, @06:03AM
Thanks. And I have yet to hear a plausible explanation of why its "good" to have to have an ID to buy a single beer, a pack of smokes, even to catch a fish, none of which really affects anybody other than the person doing it, while its bad to require an ID for something that can fuck our country for decades and for which we have plenty of evidence for BOTH sides trying to pull shenanigans?
I mean for fucks sake guys, has nobody even kept up with the news lately? Hillary and the missing votes in Kentucky? Evidence that in at least 10 states Sanders votes went DOWN over time while hers went up? Hello? If there was EVAR proof we need serious reforms on our voting process the primaries this year should be all you need!
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 22 2016, @10:02AM
Oh boy, the Gold Standard!
I find it completely fucking INSANE that
Yes, whatever that guy Hairyfeet on the internet finds insane, . . . well, . . .gotta mean something, right?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by tftp on Sunday May 22 2016, @01:56AM
“There were 13 original states. Name three.”
What does it have to do with the modern situation? Wouldn't it be a bit more important to know currently relevant issues? Say, where in the world is Iraq or Syria? It really annoys me that often people prefer to fall back to old, pointless standbys like "in what year the $historical_event occurred?" These questions only indicate that the asking person is lazy and cannot think of anything better.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 22 2016, @05:11AM
Say, where in the world is Iraq or Syria?
Next to Israel, which is why we're at war: To fight their battles in return for the Rothschilds not using their influence on banking to crash the economy while the semitic control over the media keeps it hushed up.
Point being: There are no right answers. The correct answers will be determined by bigots.
(Score: 2) by fnj on Sunday May 22 2016, @07:22PM
You should know all about bigotry, you hitlerite anti-semitic bigot. Go crawl back under your rock.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday May 22 2016, @01:57AM
That being "an incompetent is not competent to know s/he is incompetent." So how, exactly, do we separate the informed from the uninformed? Who decides, and by what means is this winnowing performed? Who administers this? Is access open to all equally?
This way lies the road to fascism. Unfortunately I don't see any good solution either way.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 22 2016, @02:13AM
> Unfortunately I don't see any good solution either way.
Seems like complaints about the current system are making mountains out of molehills.
People don't need to have a general knowledge about the system in order to vote on what matters to them. They only need to know about what matters to them.
If we had an extreme form of direct democracy where every government decision was put to a vote, then voters should be experts. But we don't have that kind of government, so its not important.
In other countries where they have mandatory voting, the net effect of all the "uneducated" people who are forced to vote is just to add random noise, they essentially just cancel each other out. [nber.org]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Sunday May 22 2016, @02:25PM
Who decides, and by what means is this winnowing performed? Who administers this? Is access open to all equally?
Its interesting how many partial solutions we have. Historically a century or so ago one solution that was incredibly effective and fair as per above was the poll tax. As long as you're tuned into the world enough to share it with others, you'll probably find a way to scrape up a couple bucks, and the .gov always needs money anyway. Although it fit your criteria above perfectly, it had a few minor little off topic problems historically.
My theory is we're talking about an optimization problem where there is no simple global maxima and perhaps occasionally the local maxima that a poll tax represents might be the best idea at some times, despite its well known problems.
"A poll tax thats not corrupt" is interesting to think about. How about "A poll tax in a society with a basic income?". So here's a check for $20 you can either use it to vote or keep the $20. That is incredibly appealing and interesting to think about. Fundamentally democracies always degrade and collapse into the majority voting themselves the property of the minority, and one way to short circuit that is to tell smart people not to do that, and bribe dumb people. This $20 would make an effective bribe for dumb people not to participate, not to destroy democracy by voting themselves all the money. Sure its only $20, but the criteria was they're dumb, so ...
Poll tax is a member of the family of "participation required" requirements. It has a lot of well known schemes like the "must have filed income tax" or "must have done national service (military, peace corps, etc)" or "must own property (aka pay prop tax)". I suppose as a thought experiment "must have posted on internet" or "must have email address" are interesting to think about. "Must be able to procure a fraction of a bitcoin". "Must be able to admin a linux box" are LOLworthy... or are they?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by archfeld on Sunday May 22 2016, @02:06AM
Make it a crime to NOT vote. Don't worry about whom or how people vote but just insure that they do vote. I can barely conceive of 45% voter turn out, imagine what 90% would do to the polls and the general process. It is our right and IMHO should be our responsibility as citizens of this country to represent.
For the NSA : Explosives, guns, assassination, conspiracy, primers, detonators, initiators, main charge, nuclear charge
(Score: 2, Insightful) by cellocgw on Sunday May 22 2016, @02:19AM
You might think mandatory voting is a good idea, but in a variety of countries where this is or was the law, it did nothing to change the existing oligarchy. Yeah, everyone votes but there's only one name on the ballot -- or at least only one name that won't get assassinated long before gaining 10% popularity levels.
There really is no good answer.
Physicist, cellist, former OTTer (1190) resume: https://app.box.com/witthoftresume
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 22 2016, @02:30AM
Yeah, everyone votes but there's only one name on the ballot -- or at least only one name that won't get assassinated long before gaining 10% popularity levels.
I had no idea that Australian politics were so violent. [aec.gov.au]
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Sunday May 22 2016, @10:28AM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by archfeld on Monday May 23 2016, @03:47AM
We don't have the problem with getting names on the ballots here generally speaking. Getting good names on the ballot is another issue entirely, but getting more than 37% of the eligible population to vote does seem to be a problem. I am all for getting paid to go vote, from my employer at least, in fact for quite a while my neighborhood polling place was in fact my place of employment but that was just coincidence as I lived very close to work. Voting by mail as a standard seems like it should be pushed as well, just filled out my CA ballot and it will go in the mail tomorrow.
For the NSA : Explosives, guns, assassination, conspiracy, primers, detonators, initiators, main charge, nuclear charge
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 22 2016, @02:20AM
If voting is mandatory all you get are disinterested people voting randomly.
If you want to increase turnout of invested voters make voting day a mandatory paid holiday with free public transportation to the polls. Basically make it as easy as possible to vote, but let the people who simply don't care opt themselves out.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Sunday May 22 2016, @04:13AM
Right. Ideally we want to increase the proportion of voters that are informed and make thoughtful decisions.
Unfortunately, it's politically convenient to encourage useful idiots to vote and to discourage everybody that is likely to vote for the opposition, idiotic or otherwise.
There's a Nobel for anybody who can actually achieve the former with any consistency.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 22 2016, @04:25AM
All these competency test ideas remind me of Jay Leno (former Tonight Show host for non-USA'ins) and his regular episodes of "Jay Walking" -- he went out on the streets of LA and asked similar sorts of questions...and got some really funny (and wrong) answers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 22 2016, @04:56AM
Yeah, the Jaywalking segments were rather disturbing. What was even more disturbing, though, is that it quickly became a sort of celebration of stupidity. Some of these idiots actually became a kind of mini-celebrity in their own right. No, I'm not exaggerating.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 22 2016, @02:32PM
What they never showed you on jaywalking were all the people that answered correctly because they are boring.
You can't judge the general population by a sample deliberately cherry-picked to make them look bad.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Sunday May 22 2016, @04:50AM
With mandatory voting, you need a "none of the above" option.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 22 2016, @04:58AM
That doesn't give you the option of just staying home because you don't want to participate in the process at all.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Sunday May 22 2016, @05:19AM
Make it vote by mail with postage paid. That's maybe 5 minutes tops if you select the option to decline.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 22 2016, @02:23PM
If vote by mail becomes a significant proportion of votes, that's when we will actually have reason to worry about voter fraud because its just too easy to pay/extort people to vote when you can verify that they are voting the way you want them to.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Sunday May 22 2016, @03:46PM
Except that there's no evidence that's happening in any of the states where people vote by mail.
The votes still have to be counted and anybody is allowed to go and watch the count. There were spurious accusations of voter fraud by the GOP, so now the local count is done in a sort of fishbowl where there's nothing in the room except the actual tables and the machines to do the counting.
People like to make accusations of voter fraud, but there's little reason to believe that individuals are committing voter fraud to any appreciable extent. It's certainly not common, nor have there been any arrests. The bigger issue relates to voting machines that lack a paper trail and confirmation ticket. Not to mention when one party or another decides to challenge votes hoping to prevent some of them from being counted.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday May 23 2016, @02:00PM
It's certainly not common, nor have there been any arrests.
I can't imagine any reason why those in power would want to cover up the circumstances that got them into power...
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 23 2016, @04:06PM
>> If vote by mail becomes a significant proportion of votes, that's when we will actually have reason to worry about voter fraud
>
> Except that there's no evidence that's happening in any of the states where people vote by mail.
Are you some sort of extra-dimensional being? One for whom that original sentence is not future tense but rather present or even past tense?
(Score: 1) by boxfetish on Sunday May 22 2016, @04:58AM
The best idea is to do both. Make voting day(s) a public holiday with pay and free transport to and from the polls AND make it illegal to not vote.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Sunday May 22 2016, @08:26AM
If you haven't taken the effort to do the research for an election the responsible thing to do is abstain.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 22 2016, @02:28AM
in Australia you get a fine if you don't vote, but all you really have to do is show up to a polling place and get your name ticked off a list
even if you were forced to go into a polling booth, what would stop you from just folding up the ballot papers without writing anything on them?
you could maybe use an electronic voting machine to indicate if someone has cast a vote, and then prosecute anyone that comes out of a polling booth without the indicator being set off
i doubt that would feel very democratic though, and the level of donkey voting would increase substantially to the point where the final result might be less meaningful anyway
if you like having your government forcing people to do things, why bother with voting at all? just institute authoritarianism and be done with it. democracy is for the weak anyway, amirite?
(Score: 1) by cyka on Sunday May 22 2016, @11:01PM
I worked as an election officer in an Australian state election.
When we counted the votes the Australia First Party was outvoted by informal votes with dicks drawn on them.
(Score: 2) by linuxrocks123 on Monday May 23 2016, @04:48AM
So they supported Donald Trump? :P
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 22 2016, @05:59AM
Uh, no. I register but I don't vote. I do that to say "I'm ready and willing to vote but all parties and all the candidates suck".
(Score: 2) by VLM on Sunday May 22 2016, @01:17PM
That would be fun to mix with REAL ID act and voter ID laws.
My uncle-in-law went thru quite a hassle getting his REAL ID drivers license due to some documentation foul ups. In the end he pulled it off but it took trips to the courthouse to fix up his paperwork. Its widely seen as a given statement of fact on one political side that its impossible for lower functioning minorities to successfully complete REAL ID (that party is racist in its own little condescending way), and that's a bad thing, and that's a bad thing if they therefore can't vote under voter ID laws, and now we're talking about making it illegal not to vote. So right off automatically 5% of the black population will be victimless criminals, as if we haven't locked enough of them up for victimless drug crimes... I will give some credit to the disenfranchisement theory that my own uncle in law, as an old retired guy who can't drive anymore (long irrelevant story), if the county courthouse he was born at was more than the 20 miles away that it actually was, he'd probably have been pretty happy being an undocumented (no ID) native.
The next "fun" will be the USA being the USA we'll heavily enforce "not voting while black" while 85 year old white guys will get a free pass. Its just something else for cops to check while pulling over people for driving while black. I'm not really seeing the gain here. Clearly we already have enough reasons to shoot them in the back, its not like we need more paperwork BS for everyone else.
Another problem is the level of criminality. So... Presidential elections... OK. Now how about local suburban municipal primaries in April, should that also be a felony if you don't vote for the primary for the city dog catcher? How about the PTO elections at my kids school?
Speaking of felony, "we" disenfranchise a lot of people... I guess some disgusting individuals could see that as a "bonus" if a dude is a convicted murderer therefore unable to vote for the rest of their life, then every election the local police can drop off a $100 citation (or jail time, or whatever) for the rest of their life after their term is over. And how does that interact with historical sentences, the judge said he gets 20 years and is free, although disenfranchised. The judge didn't say 20 years and is disenfranchised and gets a week in jail after every election for the rest of his life because its illegal for him to vote and illegal for everyone not to vote. I'm not saying that couldn't happen in America but it sounds pretty crappy.
Who gets put in charge of "sick day" excuses? So some coworker's wife goes into labor early in november (early in both senses of the grammar) and does that mean she serves a jail term (with her newborn, I hope?) or how about hubby, or does it only except hubby if he's a trained "labor coach"? How about my Mother-In-Law who spent pretty much 24x7 time baby sitting our first kid while my wife was in labor for the second kid? How about some poor bastard with food poisoning or the flu or a temporary-ish mental condition? Let me take a wild guess, that any white guy in a suit in front of a judge will get a free pass whereas any black dude will get told there's plenty of space in the jail for him... "I had the sniffles" "no problem rich white guy you're free to go" "I was in a coma in the hospital ICU" "Well black dude if you slept thru the election you won't mind sleeping in jail for a week" Its not going to be a problem for me, but its going to be a problem.
The final bit is I see voting as "political speech".. There's a classic libertarian bow tie rant about how voting only encourages the bastards so he doesn't. I like that rant and I've quoted it a bit. Technically as long as the ballot is kept secret (for how much longer will that last?) then all you need do is register, show up, then throw out your ballot as a protest if you hate all the choices. That will be made illegal because we already have problems if the count of ballots issued doesn't match the count of votes pretty closely. That encourages voter fraud if you know 50% of the population will show up and toss out their ballot and the margin of victory is small like 5% in some districts.
(Score: 3, Funny) by HiThere on Sunday May 22 2016, @07:01PM
I'd support mandatory voting only if there is a mandatory slot on each ballot marked "None of the above", and that those votes are counted double.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 22 2016, @02:06AM
voting is just a farce to keep the population pacified
if you really think your vote counts, i got a bridge to sell
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 22 2016, @02:10AM
Wasn't the whole reason for the electoral college that the founders thought the general population was too dumb to do things as important as selecting a President?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 22 2016, @03:23AM
Yes.
In the original constitution, only the House of Representatives was directly elected. The Senators were chosen by the state legislatures, which provided both a check to populism and to federal power. On the one hand, should a populist party arise and seize the House, it could not also seize the Senate (and thus the entire legislature) without also taking the individual state legislatures first. On the other, the states would have a check on federal power by controlling half of Congress. Finally, the President was also elected by the Electoral College, whose members were chosen by the direct popular vote but who existed to prevent a dangerous populist from taking power.
The Seventeenth Amendment, which eliminated the states' selection of Senators, became law in 1913.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 22 2016, @05:01AM
The electoral college doesn't fix that at all. If the general population was too dumb to elect the president, and the founders wanted to prevent this, they would have simply made other elected officials appoint the president, rather than even allowing people to vote for the president.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Sunday May 22 2016, @08:37AM
The reason for the electoral college was to create a balance of power between the states with slavery and those without, to entice the former group to join the federation. Slaves were counted as 0.6 of a (free) man.
http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/editorials/article/Electoral-College-An-Obsolete-Concept-2694598.php [sfgate.com]
http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2012-11-09/news/bs-ed-electoral-letter-20121109_1_electoral-college-slavery-legacy [baltimoresun.com]
http://people.uncw.edu/lowery/pls101/wilson_chapter_outlines/The%20Proslavery%20Origins%20of%20the%20Electoral%20College.pdf [uncw.edu]
https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llfr&fileName=002/llfr002.db&recNum=60&itemLink=r?ammem/hlaw:@field%28DOCID+@lit%28fr00218%29%29%230020061&linkText=1 [loc.gov]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-Fifths_Compromise [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by TheRaven on Sunday May 22 2016, @10:32AM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by GungnirSniper on Sunday May 22 2016, @08:56PM
There's two key benefits to keeping this system. One is that it insulates state-level fraud from having a wider impact. If 66% of California is reported as voting for one candidate, it doesn't throw the entire election, only the votes from that state. The second is it keeps up some small degree of our Sovereign States, who can choose their own counting processes and primaries.
Tips for better submissions to help our site grow. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Gravis on Sunday May 22 2016, @02:23AM
the problem is not voters, the problem is the politicians lie ("flip-flop") without any accountability. it's supposed to be up to the political parties to give politicians that break to rules the boot out of their party but instead of doing what's best for everyone they prefer to "win" at any cost. with proper campaign finance reform, i think there would be a drastic change in the political landscape because there is a fuckload of things wrong with it right now.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 22 2016, @03:05AM
Bingo! The political system is not only broken... it's corrupt.
(Score: 2) by Hyperturtle on Sunday May 22 2016, @02:03PM
I think that a politician that makes a strong argument for something and then conveniently forgets about it in order to keep a larger donator happy -- that to me is a crime. That is flip-flopping to me on the issue.
I think that a politician that is called out for being stupid or lavished with praise (perhaps both, because being stupid provides great rewards sometimes) who then finds that their original opinion/intent was WRONG, or at least has decided that the concept was wrong or their originally stated thoughts are fundamentally flawed in some way -- this is permissible. That is not flip-flopping. That's making an informed decision to counter when the decision was based on ignorance or greed or conservative reluctance to anything regarding change (by that I do not mean conservative as in republican, I mean conservative as in closed-minded-will-hear-no-arguments). That "ignorance" could have been deliberate, it could have been head-in-the-sand-fingers-in-ears not listening because they know what they'd learn is against the money they are expecting to accept... no party is immune from this problem.
It angers me when politicians are called out for not being 0 or 1. Bits flip/people change. As long as it isn't a cosmic ray or a large campaign donation that is causing the political flip, I am A-OK with an elected, or presently running for election, person with making a change.
Sure I love stability and that I can trust that when someone says really dumb things, I like to be able to count on the fact he'll always be a blowhard that I will dislike. This makes it easy to feel disgust without needing to think about it. The painful cognitive dissonance when someone comes around to agreeing to one of my views despite still being so wrong about all the others (If I had no biases I couldn't comment the way I am...)... I am ok with cognitive dissonance. It gives me reason to review the issues and the person again. Maybe I can respect the person after I understand why they think what they do. Maybe not. The cognitive dissonance gives me pause and I have to either figure it out or question my own biases and if they are appropriate.
I also prefer to be corrected when wrong, rather than being known as that righteously indignant guy that no one can manage to convince is wrong about something. I'd rather learn from a mistake, or even hear about something I did that was perceived as a mistake -- because it may be that I am indeed wrong, or that I presented something wrong, or am right in the limited context I know of but may form a new opinion with new facts in hand...
I extend that courtesy to elected officials because I hope that others would extend it to me. As right as I may want to be and as right as I think I am, I had to form those opinions somehow, and it was with the help of external influences. I expect and hope that I keep getting the feedback necessary to help me make an informed choice, and I expect the same of elected officials.
I may not agree with their choices, especially if they conclude the opposite of what I'd hope--but I wouldn't call them a flip-flopper for doing that. Now, if it was clear it was because Halliburton will bring 15,000 jobs to their state if they built a satanic altar with Dick Cheney in a Darth Vader costume presiding over the construction ceremony, that's a little different. (I'd have to judge things based on the color of the light sabre he wields to cut the ribbon--one issue voter and all that!)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 22 2016, @02:52AM
I say we do not attack this problem by having a literacy test. It has become obvious to all that the real problem is education! As in, it is not working. So rather than prohibiting our respectable fellow citizens from voting, I say we should cut funding to public education, since it obviously is not giving us our money's worth! Who's with me???? Afterwards, we can all go to Futtbucker's for burgers, and to Starbucker for "lattes". Brwando, it's got electrolytes!
(Score: 4, Insightful) by ilPapa on Sunday May 22 2016, @03:07AM
Let me fix that for you:
https://www.salon.com/2016/04/28/im_speaking_with_myself_because_i_have_a_very_good_brain_donald_trump_is_really_smart_according_to_donald_trump/ [salon.com]
You are still welcome on my lawn.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 24 2016, @11:32AM
Watch this video where Donald Trump basically predicts the future [youtube.com], proving he's smart and knows a thing or two about people -- not to mention foreign policy.
I suggest you don't underestimate Trump. He is smart, and he knows what the hell he's talking about. His statement about pandering Washington rhetoric? "It's all lies!" Spot on, I'd say.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 24 2016, @11:35AM
That video is from over a decade ago. How is it predicting the future? Everyone knows that things went to shit in Iraq when we pulled out. Of course Washington is full of lies. At best Trump is stating the obvious. Granted, we could do with more of that in politics, but it doesn't mean he can predict the future.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by bitstream on Sunday May 22 2016, @05:33AM
Make it simple. Put some tick boxes on the ballot. Correct answers makes the vote valid. And make it valid questions like "Is it a right in the US to not incriminate yourself?" or "What's the largest spending area for the government?" etc.
Who gets to run the country if both the president and the vice president can't work is largely an issue for people in the government in practice. While policy isn't.
Hint, this issue is discussed in other countries too!
(Score: 1) by DeVilla on Monday May 23 2016, @02:15AM
"Is the right to bare arms an individual right or collective right?"
Answer wrong and you don't vote.
(Score: 1, Troll) by tangomargarine on Monday May 23 2016, @02:07PM
And explain what the distinction is.
What point are you trying to make?
P.S. It's right to bear arms. So if you can't even spell it correctly you can't care about it that much :P
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 1) by DeVilla on Tuesday May 24 2016, @02:57AM
Short and sweet... (https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/second_amendment)
So again, which is it. And if you vote^W answer wrong, you don't get to vote.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday May 24 2016, @01:54PM
So there's two generally-accepted theories and you're going to arbitrarily pick one.
I'm glad you're not in charge of this hypothetical test.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 1) by DeVilla on Saturday May 28 2016, @05:41AM
You almost got the point. Who picks the questions?
(Score: 1, Troll) by aristarchus on Tuesday May 24 2016, @04:42AM
P.S. It's right to bear arms. So if you can't even spell it correctly you can't care about it that much :P
And what, prey tell, do ursine appendages have to do with the right to vote?
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday May 24 2016, @01:51PM
http://www.dictionary.com/browse/bear-arms [dictionary.com]
10. bear arms,
a. to carry weapons.
b. to serve as a member of the military or of contending forces:
His religious convictions kept him from bearing arms, but he served as an ambulance driver with the Red Cross.
"Bear" as in "carry," not "bare" as in "reveal to others."
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 1, Redundant) by aristarchus on Tuesday May 24 2016, @09:21PM
"Bear" as in "carry," not "bare" as in "reveal to others."
Yes, but you miss my point. "Bear" as in the "mammal of the family Ursidae." You know, like Smokey or Yogi. And "arms", as "in anatomy, the arm is the upper limb of the body, comprising regions between the glenohumeral joint (shoulder joint) and the elbow joint. In common usage the arm extends to the paw." Thus "bear arms" as in "arms of bears", not the "bearing of arms" as in anyone carrying upper limbs, whether of their own or of others.
So I repeat my question: what do the arms of bears have to do with voting rights?
(Score: 1, Redundant) by tangomargarine on Wednesday May 25 2016, @01:41PM
They don't because you're purposely misunderstanding what I was saying. Go away.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by aristarchus on Wednesday May 25 2016, @08:32PM
They don't? Ah, then what does the bearing of arms (weapons) have to do with voting rights? Are you not afraid you are purposely misunderstanding the OP who mentions bare arms? Typos are one thing, intentionally misconstruing what someone is saying is quite another! Well, at least no one has suggested baring bear arms, because even if it got the majority of the votes, I don't think that bears would be cool with it. Or, come to think of it, they would be _too_ cool?
(Score: 2) by PocketSizeSUn on Sunday May 22 2016, @05:59AM
So why do you think that K-12 education the US is such a joke? Is it really a coincidence that we keep lowering standards and mainstream the clearly 'challenged' while doing the opposite for those that are clearly intelligent?
Educated population to maintain democracy .. FAIL.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 22 2016, @07:13PM
No, the problem is not that we're "doing the opposite" for the bright, but rather that they're being mainstreamed too.
When I was a kid, we had three to five different levels of classes (depending on the subject and year). The brightest kids were segregated off from the rest of the school, as were the EMR/TMR (mentally retarded). The bright kids got bright teachers who had full rein to run their classes as they saw fit: none of this standards testing and more testing and teach-to-the-test-or-be-fired. The dumb kids were put in a room away from the mediocre and bright kids, so there was (a) less damage that they could do to the group as a whole, and (b) more attention for their deficits in an environment of less shame, since all the peers in the room were dumb. The mediocre kids, making up the bulk of the school, got to be free of the dumb kids and didn't feel inferior to the bright kids, since both groups were removed from the "mainstream."
Now, everyone gets lumped into one class. The bright kids meet or slightly exceed the low expectations set for the dumb kids, which means that they're achieving basically nothing more than mediocre kids. The dumb kids are either spastically fucking up or sleeping (if the teacher is lucky). The medicore kids know that they're mediocre and cannot concentrate because of the dumb kids who keep fucking up. That's mainstreaming in a nutshell.
Mainstreaming is a cute idea if you're the sort who wants to "include" everyone in a carnivalesque shitfest. If you actually want to get stuff done, you need to make distinctions and segregate people into levels of productivity.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 22 2016, @06:04AM
How presumptious to believe that exercising ones civic duty and voting is equivalent to telling anyone how to do anything.
(Score: 2) by inertnet on Sunday May 22 2016, @09:25AM
The proposer of that idea should check out the caste system in India. Citizens may be ignorant, but they're still affected by political decisions, the ignorant maybe even more so. Not that voting will help them much, but taking it away from them would create a caste system in America.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 23 2016, @04:42AM
Like there's not one already? Its not as diverse as India's, but there's definitely a caste system in the US - if you're born into money (the only way to not be poor in the US, aside from getting extremely lucky, like one in a million) then you're a first-class citizen, and if you're not (poor or working poor, formerly known as the "middle class") or are anything other than a straight, white male then you're a second-class citizen.
(Score: 2) by quintessence on Sunday May 22 2016, @10:18AM
if you can't trust the electorate?
Am I really to believe uniformed voters are wrecking the republic when about 15% of the population decides the fate of the country?
Posted previously, but seriously worth considering:
http://arxiv.org/abs/0907.0455 [arxiv.org]
Even in a merit based system, it tends to have worse outcomes than choosing people at random.
That should really give you pause.
More and more I'm in favor of cutting out the middle-men in government and moving to demarchy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 22 2016, @08:54PM
Thanks, I'll have to dig into that interesting article when I have some time!
(Score: 3, Touché) by JeffPaetkau on Sunday May 22 2016, @10:52PM
That paper is absurd!
They describe two options for a promoted actor. One the actors display similar competence to the position promoted from (with 10% random variation. Two, competence in the new position is 100% random. While these may be interesting values to use in the model as a point of comparison I think this is vastly over simplified. In reality promotions to different positions will have different levels of competence overlap. Especially since the numerical figure they are using to represent competence supposedly includes things like "efficiency, productivity, care, diligence, ability to acquire new skills" few promotions will have anywhere near 0% competence overlap.
Their 3 promotion strategies (best_at_old, worst_at_old, random) while interesting do not include what I would argue the "common sense" strategy of promoting the actor who will do the best at the new level (best_at_new).
They also don't even attempt to model the problems posed be imperfect information about the actors in question. That is a gaping hole in their model that makes it useless all by itself.
This paper is at best an interesting starting point for a more complex model. It's applicability to the real world is about nill.
(Score: 2) by quintessence on Monday May 23 2016, @02:13AM
On the contrary, the paper makes the case that any criteria used for promotion by necessity has imperfect information that can't be accounted for, and a regression towards the mean happens more often through sheer chance than by outliers, your reservations about selection criteria aside. Any particular data point can be spotlighted as either above or below, but the average over the long term favors chance unless you have absolutely perfect selection criteria (funny how you didn't include that bit of imperfect information in your critique).
There was also a study comparing group intelligence vs. experts with regards to stock picks, and surprise group intelligence outperform the experts because, again, imperfect information and the likelihood of some random person having insight that wasn't apparent to the experts. Any particular pick may have been better or worse, but the average favors chance.
The unintuitiveness of the conclusions is what makes the paper interesting. Your criticisms amount to variables don't comport with your real world evaluation, which is fine. The real world also has billions of examples of the peter principle in practice that apparently ever stringent selection criteria has failed to address. Tell me again which one is more absurd.
(Score: 2) by JeffPaetkau on Monday May 23 2016, @10:08PM
Oh, don't get me wrong. I don't dispute the existence of the Peter Principal. I'm not even sure that their conclusion is necessarily wrong. My objection to that paper is only that they oversimplify their model to the point of absurdity.
A more robust model that more closely matches how people are (or could be) promoted within an organisation may very well show the same result. That is, randomly selecting actors for promotion might be the best strategy. However, I don't think this particular model is strong enough to suggest that with any confidence whatsoever.
(Score: 2) by theluggage on Sunday May 22 2016, @12:08PM
“If both the President and the Vice President can no longer serve, who becomes President?” “There were 13 original states. Name three.” “What is one right or freedom from the First Amendment?” "What is freedom of religion?
Yes, that should ensure that the only people allowed to vote are the ones who pay to go to the expensive cramming school to drill on irrelevant history and constitutional trivia. Oh, and the ones who hated science and math because you actually had to understand shit and couldn't just cram.
Good luck getting the questions agreed by all the vested interests - I'm sure the current civics test exists because nobody gives a shit about it: make it important and the only questions you'll get through will be the trivia ones.
Maybe Heinlein was on the right lines: want to vote? Spend 3 years doing something requiring self-sacrifice and teamwork (forget the film - that was a parody that told you what to think - there were, originally, options other than enrolling as cannon-fodder but I guess Heinlein didn't think Starship Teachers would sell as well...)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 22 2016, @02:10PM
Only if we include it as a requirement for the real driver of the political process - spending money. Otherwise, the rich will blow off the social service requirement, but continue to steer the process via their money. What matters the final vote when you've vetted all the candidates and know they'll follow your agenda?
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Sunday May 22 2016, @10:07PM
Yes, that should ensure that the only people allowed to vote are the ones who pay to go to the expensive cramming school to drill on irrelevant history and constitutional trivia. Oh, and the ones who hated science and math because you actually had to understand shit and couldn't just cram.
That's not true! I didn't go to a private school and the answer is ... president, vice president, mumble mumble mumble, Secretary of Education! [battlestarwiki.org]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Fauxlosopher on Sunday May 22 2016, @12:09PM
The overwhelming majority of problems in the USA are due to US governments of all stripes acting criminally. Voting has become a major point of contention because instead abiding by an enumerated list of delegated powers, US governments are de facto "free stuff" dispensaries and muscle hired to attack other people the voters don't like.
It should be recognized that an institution (US Constitution) which was created by delegation of individuals' authority (Philadelphia Convention) cannot have authority which exceeds its source. The maximum legal authority of any US government is limited to that which is possessed by a single person.
Since I as an individual do not have authority to steal someone else's stuff [reason.com] because I don't like what they're doing in the privacy of their own home, nor to kidnap someone and lock them up in a cage for napping in their parked car [arizonaduicenter.com], neither can a government whose sole legitimate power comes from delegation of my own personal power. To put it another way, how many followers must I as a normal person have before I can kidnap my neighbor and have it not be considered a crime? (Answer: irrelevant, as the initiation of force is ALWAYS a crime.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 22 2016, @01:10PM
But I do know a snake oil salesman when I see one. This story is stupid. What's the point when 99% of the politicians are only in it to make loads of money for little to no work?
(Score: 2) by VLM on Sunday May 22 2016, @01:41PM
According to Harsanyi, if you have no clue what the hell is going on
The links are unrealistic. My stuff below is far more realistic.
Its funny that this stuff is always quoted WRT trivial pursuit questions about constitutional law that don't matter to virtually everyone but are supposedly both universal common heritage AND are also simultaneously unknown.
The reality in 2016 is a voting permission test is a hell of a lot more likely to be something like:
"Correctly name every component of LGBTIQA" (Obviously claiming the A stands for sexually identifying as an Apache Attack Helicopter would DQ you from voting)
"Correctly match the noodz pix with the proper pronoun" (ze zie zir ze xe xem AND the right one for each cis/trans situation)
"Explain 5 correct reasons why you personally should feel guilty about the holocaust or slavery"
"Correctly explain why Christianity is evil in 140 characters or less"
Or even more blatant like explain why voting for Trump is bad or why voting for Hilary is good.
You have to pass indoctrination tests to graduate from college, maybe high school soon enough... I'm sure the general population could figure it out.
This is aside from motivation issues. If some weirdo on the street asks me a question like "got a dollah?" or "lookin for weed?" I politely tell them no or ignore them or otherwise don't cooperate with the conversation. Ditto spam calls on my phone. I have this suspicion that they're harassing pedestrians about constitutional law and shockingly 30% of the population answers the question they ask and the other 70% who say "F Off" are counted as not knowing. There's a difference between not knowing and not caring.
Probably the best way to motivate people is never discussed. Simply issue a lotto there 1 in 10 people are told tough shit they don't get the privilege of voting. Or have the candidates roll D20s on national TV and if either gets a natural 20 then the election is cancelled and the crit hit wins. You could market it as saving money. People love to complain about stuff being taken away... take away their elections and that'll get out the vote like never before. Or if you really want to F with people tell them only the military and vets get to vote this time, or only men, or only white people, or only anything.
As per above the idea of a national lotto is amusing. Shit tier "get out the vote" campaigns are historically ineffective for the amount spent, so defund them and put the money into a lotto pool for actual voters. So if you vote you could win $1M from the vote lottery. That'll get a lot more votes than recent historical "get out the vote" campaigns. Assuming its an inherent good that people who don't care about the election are voting.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 22 2016, @02:35PM
Wow. You have put a lot of effort into justifying your world-view.
It looks like you are trying really hard to convince yourself.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Sunday May 22 2016, @02:00PM
The specific questions were dumb establishment propaganda "leading questions".
Here's the truth of the matter which won't be permitted in mass media.
the U.S. Constitution is the supreme law of the land
One of our former presidents said it was just a piece of paper. Most of the government for most of my life has acted like its a piece of toilet paper, specifically.
43 percent couldn't say that the first 10 amendments to the Constitution are known as the Bill of Rights
A significant fraction of the population is in direct rebellion against the first and wants a Christian theocracy, essentially an Evangelical Christian Taliban. A larger fraction, yet almost completely non-overlapping, has a massive cognitive dissonance and likes to LARP that the second doesn't exist. Although it was an issue 200 years ago, nobody in 2016 gives a F about the 3rd. The 4th is toilet paper the .gov and .com team up to eliminate the 4th, it is badthink. The 5th is obsolete send them to Guantanamo. I could play this game all day, but in summary if you have a piece of toilet paper, does it really matter whats imprinted upon it?
If both the President and the Vice President can no longer serve, who becomes President?
Its a stupid question, the answer is nobody because its going to be really hard to pull off short of "Wargames" style global thermonuclear war. In a Zen "what is the sound of one hand clapping" sense, "who is in charge of DC if DC is smoking glassed crater" doesn't really matter.
There were 13 original states. Name three.
Name the FCC federal register reg detailing daytime broadcast AM radio power transmission levels. Oh wait, you can't because that info is useless to 99.9999% of the population? Hmm well how about a question about the 13 colonies from battlestar galactica ... er I mean the USA? The correct answer is F you that's useless.
The difference is that now we have unlimited access to information.
Noob misspelled pr0n.
Any effort to improve the quality of the voting public should ensure that all races, creeds, genders and sexual orientations and people of every socioeconomic background are similarly inhibited from voting when ignorant.
Its a stealth argument for abolishing elections and going back to monarchy. I'm not sure thats a bad idea. Most monarchies and some dictatorships are better run than the USA. If you have the population demographics of Iceland then democracy makes sense. If you have a dumpster fire like the USA, then maybe a dictatorship makes more sense. A strong Praetorian guard with sharp knives, or gunmen on grassy knolls, can keep a dictator from wigging out too much. Some would say this is what we have right now, and the elections are just an act, you choose heads or tails after I've already chosen the coin... Plus or minus a Trump here and there.
concludes Harsanyi, "you have no standing to tell the rest of us how to live our lives."
The idea that we, or any other country on the planet, should be free to live lives without being told what to do by the American Establishment is unamerican badthink of the highest order in actual practice. The only thing everyone in the establishment equally believes is freedom is an inherent evil. Dude has a nice slogan that has nothing to do with real world politics. It is, fundamentally, unamerican, as american is currently defined. I mean if you're just going to belt out idiotic slogans that don't mean nothing, why not try "workers of the world unite" ?
(Score: 1, Disagree) by isj on Sunday May 22 2016, @02:57PM
One of my friends proposed something similar, but I think his example questions were too tough and tricky technical details. Most people don't care. Also, young people generally don't have enough accumulated knowledge/trivia so that would also be unfair. The difficulty of the test should so that 98% of people in all sub-demographics can pass, and shouldn't rely on rote learning. Something that even a reasonably well-informed foreigner can answer. Eg:
1: In terms of population (people living there) which rank does Cleveland, Ohio have in the US:
a: about 2nd place
b: about 50th place
c: about 250th place
2: how much does a medium-sized burger from a normal fastfood restaurant cost?
a: about 50c
b: about $2
c: about $10
d: about $15
3: roughly how many countries are there in latin america and south america combined?
a: 3
b: 8
c: 20
No technicalities, no tricks, no difficult questions. The goal of the test should be to weed out the absolute ignorants, but also make people slightly more interested in the world (it would be embarrassing to fail the test).
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Sunday May 22 2016, @10:39PM
The difficulty of the test should so that 98% of people in all sub-demographics can pass, and shouldn't rely on rote learning.
How appropriate that you would exclude close to 'one percent' of the population, in particular for the second question [youtube.com].
(Score: 1) by isj on Monday May 23 2016, @09:56AM
It was intentional.
(Score: 2) by fnj on Sunday May 22 2016, @08:08PM
I toyed with this idea in my mind over 50 years ago, but doesn't take much wisdom at all to realize that while ignorance of the electorate is a big problem, (1) it's not the biggEST problem, (2) any attempted solution would be fraught with massive potential for corruption, and (3) it misses an understanding of human motivation.
1) I nominate the tragedy of the commons [wikipedia.org] for consideration as the biggest problem with elections. A commonly-cited, but hardly the only, manifestation of this problem is that once your electorate realizes they can vote to take the wealth of "everybody else" and distribute it to themselves, your system is doomed. Just as socialist systems are endangered by corruption of the bureaucracy, democratic systems are endangered by corruption of the electorate.
There are other enormous problems that merit consideration as "what's wrong with the system", as well. Powerful conspiracies can control the pool of nominee candidates. Or they can control which nominees and nominee candidates get exposed on the news, or which are cast in positive or negative lights. Or they can orchestrate the flow of money in the process.
2) Even granting the profound ignorance of the electorate, attacking the problem by either testing knowledge and wisdom, or trying to educate that knowledge and wisdom, opens the door to staggering corruption. Testing could easily become slanted, or perverted. Even with the best intentions, it is difficult to test general knowledge and wisdom. And education is indistinguishable from indoctrination.
3) There is no guarantee that voters who are knowledgeable and wise will not be bigoted or prejudiced.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday May 22 2016, @10:54PM
"Good luck with that."
- Elite Overlords
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 23 2016, @02:23AM
The primary questions you must answer are those of the SF-86, the form used for getting a security clearance. Fill it out as if getting a TOP SECRET clearance. To save costs, we just do the quick evaluation. That is, would you be able to get the interim SECRET clearance?
Also, since the above could still allow the dumb, throw in a bit of algebra and simple probability.