Outrageous Editorial: Some People Don't Belong in Voting Booths?

[ScreamingMeemie]

http://www.macombdaily.com/stories/100304/loc_chad%20col001.shtml

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Lots of civic-minded groups are working overtime to register as many people as possible for the November election. They may have good intentions, but, frankly, they're missing a key point: Some people have no business casting a ballot in this election or any other.
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Some groups that are rounding up new voters adhere to a conservative or liberal persuasion, with areas targeted for recruiting that may help their cause. Others simply hope to increase the number of young voters, such as Rock and the Hip-Hop Team Vote -- both associated with the music industry -- and Smack Down Your Vote, launched by the professional wrestling circuit.
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I'm tempted to suggest that no wrestling fan is intelligent enough to cast a vote. Then again, the American people can surprise you.
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Rather than expanding our voter registration rolls with the uninformed, maybe we should take a cue from the Annenberg center and only hand out ballots to those who can pass a basic proficiency exam on the candidates.
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...and the guy goes on to question whether or not this is democracy in action. It would be more "democratic" to deny people a basic right???? :wtf: Take this guy's pen away.

[fugue]

1. If we're going to change the voting laws

I'm more inclined to fine people who don't vote.

[ScreamingMeemie]

3. Me too...especially those who don't vote and then bitch about their

government. My aunt falls into this category and it drives me insane.

[tomfodw]

8. If you're going to do that...

...you have to give people more time to vote.

I think there should be a 48-hour Election "day" with all polls nationwide open for as much of that period as possible, and no results reported anywhere until all polls have closed everywhere. That would keep the networks from "calling" states in the East while polls are still open in the West.

It would cost more to keep polls open longer, but it would be a drop in the bucket compared to the wastefulness of the war in Iraq or the Bush tax cuts. Anything that increases democracy here is worth almost any cost.

[RafterMan]

12. I think it should be over a long weekend

with real-time results posted throughout.

*That* would up participation. No need to bother with anti-democratic fines.

[unfrigginreal]

2. You'll get the same argument from plenty on this board unfortunately

[Longhorn]

4. The whole concept of not voting is un-American!

I was upset a week or so ago when Andy Rooney had a similar editorial at the end of 60 Minutes. His point is if you haven't bothered to vote before now, you don't deserve to vote. No room for enlightenment, for learning from one's mistakes, for gaining civic pride.

Will some folks vote for the wrong reason? Of course they will, though who determines what's "wrong" reason?

[ScreamingMeemie]

5. Agreed. I almost spit my coffee out when I read this. And for him

to tie it in with the democratic process was unbelievable. What he is suggesting is the exact opposite.

[HFishbine]

6. A proficiency exam? Great idea.

Someone made this same point recently in a LTTE in my local paper. Here is my published reply:
-----------

A recent letter-writer suggested that people should have to pass a test before they are allowed to vote. Something like this?

1) Which nationality was not represented among the 9/11 hijackers?
a) Egyptian
b) Saudi Arabian
c) Iraqi

2) Iraq refused to allow weapons inspections before the war. (T/F)

3) This year’s federal deficit will be a record $521 billion. (T/F)

4) The real income of non-management workers (teachers, nurses, police, etc.) is falling. (T/F)

5) Abortion rates declined by 22 percent and teen pregnancies declined by 30 percent during the last Democratic presidency. (T/F)

6) After being warned in early January, 2001 by the outgoing National Security Advisor that Al Qaeda was the greatest threat to U.S. security, the Bush administration held its first cabinet-level meeting to address this threat in which month?
a) January
b) April
c) September

7) Which former U.S. president armed Saddam Hussein?
a) Ronald Reagan
b) Bill Clinton

8) Whose family members were allowed to leave the country immediately after murderous crimes were committed?
a) Timothy McVeigh’s
b) Dillon Klebold’s
c) Osama bin Laden’s

9) The Bush administration has proposed an airline passenger-screening program that will secretly assign a “risk score” based on:
a) Credit history
b) Magazine subscriptions
c) Political affiliation
d) Possibly all of the above, it’s a secret.

10) What legislation outlawed voter tests?

(Answers: 1, c; 2, False; 3, True; 4, True; 5, True; 6, c; 7, a; 8, c; 9, d; 10, The 1965 Voting Rights Act)

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Note: The facts on which these questions were based were compiled with the help of DUers -- thanks!

[ScreamingMeemie]

7. Screw the Voter's Rights Act...Obviously this writer hasn't heard of

it. ;)

Great test BTW. It would eliminate those that I would want to eliminate, but unfortunately we can't support it. :hi:

[cheshire]

13. If you can answer these Q's you are more qualified to be Pres. than *.

[spooky3]

30. good one!

[yellowcanine]

9. "Duck Blind Justice" Scalia doesn't think people have an absolute right to

vote either - or at least to have their votes counted - amounts to the same thing. This guy Chad compares the right to vote to getting a driver's license. "After all, why is it you have to pass a test to drive a car but not to choose the leader of the free world?"

Uh Chad - maybe because voting is a RIGHT and driving is a PRIVILEGE?

[ScreamingMeemie]

10. Yes...Constitution Schmonstitution in this guy's mind.

Sad, eh?

[cheshire]

11. Are those the same folks that shouldn't reproduce?

[ScreamingMeemie]

14. I'm sure it depends...

;)

[jmowreader]

15. Actually, I like it

Require a likely voter to pass a basic proficiency exam and you've disenfranchised all of the freepers and most of the one-issue Cross Voters.

[ScreamingMeemie]

21. It would bite us back.

We count on some of those "uneducated" votes as well. :hi:

[jmowreader]

29. You're right, but not as many as they do.

[Fleshdancer]

16. Proficiency exam???!? Hmm...Bush wouldn't be able to vote for himself

While I wish we would reverse the dumbing down of our society, the idea of picking and choosing who can vote is ridiculous. Then again, I guess that's why the electoral college was created.

[ScreamingMeemie]

22. And the Voters' Rights Act.

But this administration seems bent on burning up the Constitution...in the name of the Constitution. :hi:

[PATRICK]

17. Universal draft and required voting

If everyone does it, everyone to some degree must take it seriously, gripes or readiness aside. Some few groups like the mentally deficient(except some afflicted GOP scions) can be exempted because they are not capable of judgment, but the argument is exactly the reverse of those imposing tests on the great unwashed.

In an environment where everyone votes the issues everyone wants are usually affected for the better. Int is in the vacuum, the vacant lots of the electorate, that trouble is brewed, that the malevolent plant with weeds, that make politicians manipulators, lazy servants of the few they need to stay in power. And it always gets worse as the voters become a controlled pyramid of less and less influence, ENFORCED IGNORANCE, predictable fanaticism, underneath big money interest. It can be fatal to democracy. Every non voter is a sign of disease in the body politic. Every non voter steals the power of the voter and in fact casts an indifferent ballot for tyranny that the voter cannot overcome, burdened as he is by pervasive non-democratic forces filling the vacuum.

Then will the responsible citizen be forced to be the few revolutionaries, taking up martyrdom and arms, to rescue an indolent majority at the brink of disaster or worse? Non smokers, non drinkers pay for the health woes and deaths of smokers and DWI's. We correct that situation, but our real attention should be paid to a more insidious problem- the coddling of so-called citizens and patriots. At the least we should do as they do in Puerto Rico(some of the ideas mentioned in posts above) at least. There most people vote and are given time not weak encouragement or disenfranchising hoops to leap.

Maybe Puerto Rico should be the only state and the fifty-one the territories in democratic development.

[ScreamingMeemie]

23. Thank you Patrick. Well said.

:hi:

[Mike Daniels]

18. There was a thread here last week that suggested the same thing

Basically the poster said that only people who can pass a basic civics test should be allowed to vote and a surprising number agreed with him.

There's a fair amount of people on this board who have contempt for a good portion of the American public just because they don't loathe Bush as much as some DU'ers think they should.

[ScreamingMeemie]

24. And that scares me more than anything.

Intelligence should never be measured by rote learning in my opinion. Most people, I like to think, can make up their own minds about what is good for their family...if only they take the time to think about it.

[Strawman]

19. He proposes an unacceptable remedy, but...

I do always find these statistics depressing. People need to care more about these things. So to some extent, I share his frustration about the voters. But I certainly don't blame activists for trying to make things better.

People vote based on very general impressions of the candidates and by identifying candidates and their parties with large issues or worldviews. They rarely know much about the candidates policy positions.

So know nothing about the issues, either decline to vote or cast an ill-informed vote, then bitch about the way things are. That's your average eligible voter. People in this country really shirk their duty when it comes to the political process.

Still, disenfranchisement by proficiency exam or any other method is an unacceptable solution and bitching about the activists that are out there actually trying to register and educate and engage people is a really stupid criticism. We ought to be doing more to get voters interested and informed to fix this problem, not less. Giving up on democracy is morally unacceptable.

[ScreamingMeemie]

25. You're absolutely right.

Giving up on democracy in the name of Democracy is a disgusting thought.

This is also why signs are important though. Lots of people like to say that "signs don't vote", but, people do vote based on signs.

:hi:

[PATRICK]

28. Can't walk if you still crawl.

Getting people to vote gets them off their knees. Then they will grow.

[Freddie Stubbs]

20. Ted Rall suggested this a week or two ago

TRIUMPH OF THE STULTOCRACY

NEW YORK--"Kerry doesn't know what the working-class people do; he hasn't done any physical labor all his life," Sharon Alfman, a 51-year-old cook in New Lexington, Ohio, told a New York Times reporter. It's true. Kerry is a rich boy. But then she added: "Bush's values are middle-class family values."
George W. Bush earned $727,000 last year. Estimates of his net worth range between $9 and $26 million. Middle class he most assuredly is not. Working class he never has been. Like fellow Skull and Bones member John Kerry, man of the people he never will be. But it matters that Sharon Altman thinks he is. Unless you too are a voter living in a swing state like Ohio, her vote counts more than yours.

Demonstrating that stupefying ignorance can be bipartisan, another Ohioan interviewed for the same article said she is against the war in Iraq because, like 42 percent of her fellow Americans, she thinks Iraq was behind 9/11: "We shouldn't be over there building them back up because they didn't build our towers back up." She is wrong on so many levels that it makes my brain hurt.

Both women are entitled to their unawareness. We can't pass a law to force them to read the paper. But neither of these people ought to force their fellow citizens to suffer the consequences of their being so uninformed. Voting should be a privilege earned by an intellectually engaged citizen, not a right given to any adult with a pulse.

more: http://www.uexpress.com/tedrall/?uc_full_date=20040921

[ScreamingMeemie]

26. Perhaps if the media wasn't busy confusing John and Joan Q., this

decision would not be so difficult. :hi:

[debatepro]

27. Shrub shouldn't vote then

nm

[yardwork]

31. Racist article...

I'm not going to comment further.

[ScreamingMeemie]

32. I agree there.

He's a creep.