Jenisi
01-29-2008, 11:12 PM
I was rather shocked when I saw this on the front page of my school's newspaper. I'm going to be doing a speech in 3 months to help persude young America to vote and this kinda pissed me off.
Ignorant People Should Not Be Allowed to Vote
January 25, 2008 — iusbvision
A person’s vote is the most powerful weapon the individual has against the government. However, should this great power come with great responsibility? I believe so, which is why I believe that ignorant people should not have the right to vote.
There is historical precedence for this line of thought. After the Civil War, polling exams were used to keep uneducated people (primarily former slaves) from voting. If one could remove the racist element from the polling exams, there is some wisdom within the exam itself.
Have you ever wondered why in Indiana, we seem to elect politicians whose names are close to the beginning of the alphabet (fmr. Gov. Birch Bayh, Evan Bayh, speaker B. Patrick Bauer)? In the past, candidates were always listed alphabetically and election after election, the candidate whose name came first on the ballot was elected.
We can see this here at IUSB. A case in point is our student government. In previous elections, we have had Mike Renfrow defeat Teresa Santos; Mike Renfrow was defeated in his first campaign by Audra Ammerman; our current president is Ivan Blount. Previous to Ammerman, the president was Michael Drain, after Ammerman, it was Bladecki. This is not to take anything away from any of these SGA presidents, but there is more than a coincidence here. Blount, Ammerman, Renfrow, and Drain all appeared first on the ballot and they won.
When someone is faced with a multiple choice decision and they don’t know, they typically select the first answer. This is why “A” is the most commonly selected answer in multiple choice exams, even though statistically “B” is most often the correct answer. We carry this same line of thinking into the polling exams.
When Indiana finally randomized the names on the ballots, suddenly Hoosier voters were able to vote straight ticket. Straight ticket meaning they could push a button and vote entirely for Republicans or Democrats. This creates an environment for elections to be decided by a bunch of ignorant people who would not know their candidate if he came into the room with a shirt saying “my name is …”.
This is where the wisdom of the polling exam comes into play. Now, I am not calling for an exam asking who is fifth in line for the presidency or what is the role of the minority whip in the House. I would, however like for a voter to at least know the name of the candidate for whom they want to vote.
I do not think it is too much to ask of a voter to know the name of the candidate they want to vote for. They should not be able to vote for “the Republican” or “the Democrat”.
Understandably, there are obvious problems of policing this. A “fill in the blank” polling machine would harm someone who wanted to vote for Sen. Voinavich. Spelling and handwriting would be big problems. And it would create a tremendous bottle-neck at the polling stations if voters had to tell the worker at the station the name of the candidate before they could vote.
I would be willing to compromise by just eliminating the straight ticket ballot and eliminating the practice of placing the party affiliation next to the candidates name.
We live in a country where less than fifty percent of the population votes and I would imagine there is a significant portion of those voting rely on the party affiliation to make their selection.
The cure for the latter is the polling exam, even if the exam only consists of insisting the voter know the name of their candidate. The former will never be solved, we cannot drag citizens to the polls, but if you don’t vote, you have no right to complain about who gets elected.
I understand that the Constitution gives us all the right to vote, but there should be some personal responsibility involved in pulling the levers to elect the most powerful people in the world.
It is not too much to ask that we know the candidates’ names before we are allowed to vote for them.
Ignorant People Should Not Be Allowed to Vote
January 25, 2008 — iusbvision
A person’s vote is the most powerful weapon the individual has against the government. However, should this great power come with great responsibility? I believe so, which is why I believe that ignorant people should not have the right to vote.
There is historical precedence for this line of thought. After the Civil War, polling exams were used to keep uneducated people (primarily former slaves) from voting. If one could remove the racist element from the polling exams, there is some wisdom within the exam itself.
Have you ever wondered why in Indiana, we seem to elect politicians whose names are close to the beginning of the alphabet (fmr. Gov. Birch Bayh, Evan Bayh, speaker B. Patrick Bauer)? In the past, candidates were always listed alphabetically and election after election, the candidate whose name came first on the ballot was elected.
We can see this here at IUSB. A case in point is our student government. In previous elections, we have had Mike Renfrow defeat Teresa Santos; Mike Renfrow was defeated in his first campaign by Audra Ammerman; our current president is Ivan Blount. Previous to Ammerman, the president was Michael Drain, after Ammerman, it was Bladecki. This is not to take anything away from any of these SGA presidents, but there is more than a coincidence here. Blount, Ammerman, Renfrow, and Drain all appeared first on the ballot and they won.
When someone is faced with a multiple choice decision and they don’t know, they typically select the first answer. This is why “A” is the most commonly selected answer in multiple choice exams, even though statistically “B” is most often the correct answer. We carry this same line of thinking into the polling exams.
When Indiana finally randomized the names on the ballots, suddenly Hoosier voters were able to vote straight ticket. Straight ticket meaning they could push a button and vote entirely for Republicans or Democrats. This creates an environment for elections to be decided by a bunch of ignorant people who would not know their candidate if he came into the room with a shirt saying “my name is …”.
This is where the wisdom of the polling exam comes into play. Now, I am not calling for an exam asking who is fifth in line for the presidency or what is the role of the minority whip in the House. I would, however like for a voter to at least know the name of the candidate for whom they want to vote.
I do not think it is too much to ask of a voter to know the name of the candidate they want to vote for. They should not be able to vote for “the Republican” or “the Democrat”.
Understandably, there are obvious problems of policing this. A “fill in the blank” polling machine would harm someone who wanted to vote for Sen. Voinavich. Spelling and handwriting would be big problems. And it would create a tremendous bottle-neck at the polling stations if voters had to tell the worker at the station the name of the candidate before they could vote.
I would be willing to compromise by just eliminating the straight ticket ballot and eliminating the practice of placing the party affiliation next to the candidates name.
We live in a country where less than fifty percent of the population votes and I would imagine there is a significant portion of those voting rely on the party affiliation to make their selection.
The cure for the latter is the polling exam, even if the exam only consists of insisting the voter know the name of their candidate. The former will never be solved, we cannot drag citizens to the polls, but if you don’t vote, you have no right to complain about who gets elected.
I understand that the Constitution gives us all the right to vote, but there should be some personal responsibility involved in pulling the levers to elect the most powerful people in the world.
It is not too much to ask that we know the candidates’ names before we are allowed to vote for them.