Should Smart People ONLY Be Allowed to Vote?

CIVICS QUIZ: https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/quiz/what-do-you-know-about-the-u-s-government/

Hi, I'm Anthony Galli and in my opinion, a high-information electorate is one where the vast majority of voters can answer at least 5-of-7 questions from the Pew Research Civics Quiz.

What’s the benefit of a high-information electorate?

Well, a voter's the boss of his public servants so how effective would an institution be if a boss hired his employees based on how they looked or sounded or made him feel or what their favorite color was or where they stood on a single issue?

(Free lunch must always be provided!)

Imagine if the boss wasn’t even sure what his employees do?! A smart employee would therefore spend less time working and more time pontificating about sandwiches.

If the boss was however more rational and knowledgeable then his employees would have to be more effective if they want to keep their job or get promoted. The more voters understand and care about a problem then the more their politicians will understand and care about a problem. Public servants would be less actor and more statesman.

So how can we create a high-information electorate, or what I like to call a smartocracy?

The easy way is to add voting requirements, such as before stepping into the ballot box a voter must answer some civics questions correctly.

Or if that’s too much of a hassle then the government could just disenfranchise demographics that have a disproportionate number of low-information voters such as by re-raising the voting age to 21 years old, or requiring voters be above-average-IQ, or below-obesity, or white, or male, or a property-owner.

If any of those measures were taken we’d have a higher information electorate. Don’t hate the fact-checker, hate the facts.

So in order for us to create a smartocracy am I recommending that we only let old rich white skinny college-educated high-IQ men capable of passing a civics quiz vote?

Yes.

Just kidding! Of course not. By removing people from the electorate it doesn’t remove them from our society. There are many problems associated with disenfranchising a huge portion of a population, which is why America, and the world for that matter, rightly moved away from such requirements in the 19th and 20th century.

The best way to create a high-information electorate is, in my opinion, to take the counterintuitive approach by making voting easier so we can consistently have high-turnout elections such as we see in other democratic countries...

A well informed citizenry is the best defense against tyranny.

I believe a high-turnout electorate OVER TIME will create a high-information electorate.

So here are five reasons why I believe high-turnout will eventually lead to a smartocracy…

More Consistent: Studies show that the more consistent a person votes (not in the same election boys and girls!) the more political knowledge they acquire over time. Practice makes perfect! When your voting every year (and yes, there is an election every year) you’ll increase your political knowledge just by osmosis. At every polling place, there’s knowledge in the air! Breathe deep! No mask!

More Rational: In a way, the days of low-turnout may very well be gone because Big Tech is the greatest GOTV tool. So if people are going to vote anyway then isn’t it better if they vote because it’s easy to do instead of because they were made angry enough to do so? If it was easier to vote campaigns would be designed less around revving up the extremes and more toward appealing to the boring middle again, which would not only serve to appeal to the middle, but also draw people toward the middle. Many people are tribalistic in their politics. If you tell me your a Republican or Democrat I probably already know 95%+ of your views. Rational people are not so easy to pin down. Trump or Biden could do the exact same thing and depending who did it would create the opposite reaction from the other team. Touchdown! YEAHHH! BOOOO! High-turnout elections will cause more undecided people in the middle to vote, which their lack of partisanship would enable politicians to be less partisan too.

READ FULL @ https://www.quora.com/profile/Anthony-Galli-5 or https://medium.com/@anthonygalli