Ironically illiterate take
this post was submitted on 26 Jul 2025
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Sure. Disenfranchise most people. That's a suitable hack to a
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stable, legitimate, and responsive government.
Even China would have more political legitimacy than such a system. It would collapse almost immediately.
If you ever want a good example of functionalist ideas leading to absolutely uncritical nonsense, here it is.
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Nah, the exams wouldn't be mandatory for everyone. You have a degree? Exempt. You graduated from one of the "certified" high schools (the ones in white neighborhoods but we don't call it that wink wink)? Exempt. Passed NRA shooting license exam? Exempt.
This is a bad idea. You would just be creating another layer of gerrymandering.
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They used to do that in the US during the Jim Crow era. It went predictably.
The exam:
Q. What is the secret password? A. Make America Great Again
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the main function of the contemporary media: to convey the message that even if you’re clever enough to have figured out that it’s all a cynical power game, the rest of America is a ridiculous pack of sheep.
This is the trap.
-David Graeber, The Democracy Project
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And the approved voters just happened to be from the 50 people who controlled the testing.
It's not working. We have relatively equal education in Germany, and we have plenty of intelligent, educated people voting far right.
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If I recall correctly, Aristotle proposed something like only the educated being able to vote. I think if everyone was guaranteed free access to both a high school and college education, along with all food and living costs covered for anyone studying, then I could see having at least any associates level degree being an okay barrier of entry to voting.
However, such a thing would need to be protected by some unremovable barriers. For instance, education would need to continue receiving appropriate funding, food and other living costs such as renting a room would need to be covered even as the cost for these things change. People with disabilities would need to receive proper accommodations.
A caveat I’ll add is that there would need to be more community colleges built and much more funding for pre-K thru 12th grade as well.
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The founding fathers basically solved this issue through the electoral college, you’re not supposed to be voting for the president, you’re supposed to be voting for the people who will elect the president. But that’s all gone to shit, proving Hamilton’s warnings about populism extremely prescient.
Even if it worked as intended, it just kicks the problem back a step
Voting should be mandatory, punished by like a $200 fine for non voters.
Yes, let's force everyone to vote whether or not they have any clue what's going on or who the candidates are, great idea.
It works in Australia. The main upside is since voting is mandatory the onus is on the government (or more precisely, an independent body called the Australian Electoral Commission) to make sure there are enough polling places, voting papers etc to accommodate the full turn out. Further, voting is done on a Saturday and there is plenty of opportunity to vote early/do a postal vote/vote from a completely different electorate etc.
My understanding from several US elections I've seen is there are a LOT of people who would like to vote but can't due to work, ridiculous waiting times, lack of facilities etc. Compulsory voting would mean all of this would have to be taken care of without the states mucking around with their own rules.
To address the issue you have, yes, people who have no clue turn up and vote BUT whilst voting is compulsory, submitting a valid vote is not. So long as you turn up and take your bits of paper you can just draw a dick on them or whatever if you don't feel you know enough to have a say.
ridiculous waiting times, lack of facilities etc.
This is a big part of the GOP's strategy for maintaining power in a "democracy" despite not having the support of anywhere near a majority of the general public. Wherever possible, they ensure that voting in Democratic areas is as difficult as they can make it. In some places they've even made it illegal just to hand out water to people waiting in line to vote.
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