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Originally Posted by cthulu23
Your idea does seem both logical and reasonable but there is a reason that most restrictions on voting have been removed over the course of American history. Many of these barriers were designed to remove the political power of some of the least powerful Americans. We should seek alternate methods to overcome voter apathy or ignorance...the potential for abuse and inherent elitism of a poll test disqualifies it for consideration in my mind.
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There are a couple of fundamental differences with all voting restriction of the past vs. this political test:
1- None of those voting restrictions were intended directly address the issue of ignorance. Ostenisibly, those in favor of those restrictions may have claimed that the goal was to create a more accurate poll of knowledgeable public opinion, but the reality is they did not target knowledge - they targetted whatever they predetermined was a seperation between those with knowledge and those without. In most cases, this broke down along racial lines.
2- None of those voting restrictions were avoidable. Because they actually had nothing to do with the knowledge of the person affected by the restriction, there was nothing that an excluded person could do to become included. In my example, that situation is not present. If you fail a test, you are not prohibited from ever voting, you simply have to learn the very basics of the issues by paying a marginal amount of attention to society and pass the test when you retake it.
I do not see any inherent avenues of abuse or elitism with a basic knowledge test.