Should voting be made more difficult?

Could making voting more difficult be beneficial to a nation?

  • No. You're a bad person.

    Votes: 25 35.2%

  • No. You're not a bad person.

    Votes: 19 26.8%

  • Yes. Here's how...

    Votes: 27 38.0%
  • Total voters
    71
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Men_in_Boxes

Men_in_Boxes

Snake Oil Salesman
Are there any democracies across the globe where citizens can vote only if they pass a certain qualifier? A test, proof of income, evidence of some kind of competency. Or am I a bad person for entertaining such an idea?

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I'd be against it as it's a totally slippery slope that would probably lead to some terrible things.

I draw the line at proof of identification so that it can be ensured they are legal residents and of age. One thing I do want to see though is where the legal age to drink, smoke, vote, and go to war are the same. Regardless of the age, just make them match.
 
Men_in_Boxes said:
Are there any democracies across the globe where citizens can vote only if they pass a certain qualifier? A test, proof of income, evidence of some kind of competency. Or am I a bad person for entertaining such an idea?

Questions-answers-democracy.jpg
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Voting should be made easier. I assume you are from the US, which exploits the system to massively remove voting rights from convicts, majority of which are non-white.

Voting should be made possible via maximum of means, starting with voting over the internet. Governments should aim at as high percentage of participation as possible. This is democracy at work.
 
GymWolf said:
They should test iq before letting people vote.
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No, if you do that you have in fact a form of meritocracy, not democracy. However this poses problems since education is very often correlated with economic status.
If you mean pure IQ test read James Crow by Philip K. Dick.
 
Cyberpunkd said:
Voting should be made possible via maximum of means, starting with voting over the internet. Governments should aim at as high percentage of participation as possible. This is democracy at work.
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I understand your point but I do not agree with internet voting at all. Voting on our leaders is not something that should be taken lightly. It is a serious issue that needs thought a consideration; it shouldn't be comparably to seeing what kind of turnip is best on buzzfeed.

Governments should also not aim for the highest number possible as not voting is also part of the process and apathy is as well. Governments should aim for an informed electorate.
 
Cyberpunkd said:
No, if you do that you have in fact a form of meritocracy, not democracy. However this poses problems since education is very often correlated with economic status.
If you mean pure IQ test read James Crow by Philip K. Dick.
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Maybe not pure iq test but something to know if you are a deranged moron...i guess it's hard ot make a test like that :lollipop_grinning_sweat:
 
Valid photo ID should be the minimum. If I had my druthers though, only people that pay taxes could vote.
 
Just proof of eligibility to vote. Most places restore voting rights to felons after the completed their sentence and this should be Federal at least for Federal elections.

Now to run for office? Definitely civics tests out the rear and regular health screenings while in office regardless if you are 20 or 120.
 
If i was in charge.

ID required, Citizenship required.
National Day off for Voting.
Pay your Taxes to automatically get on the Voters List.
Everyone gets a $200 Tax credit for actually voting.
 
AJUMP23 said:
Valid photo ID should be the minimum. If I had my druthers though, only people that pay taxes could vote.
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If I ever had to wonder how to make even less people vote in Italy, this would definitely be the answer.

I'm jaded enough to think that no meritocracy in voting would make a difference.
Universal suffrage was quickly followed by a lowering of school education in most countries, so that most voters won't do a truly informed choice anyway. Plus, the quality of political leaders has plummeted worldwide in the last two or three decades, so even if most citizens were well-educated and well-informed, they could only vote for idiots anyway. This has been the situation in Italy for a while.
 
NeoIkaruGAF said:
If I ever had to wonder how to make even less people vote in Italy, this would definitely be the answer.

I'm jaded enough to think that no meritocracy in voting would make a difference.
Universal suffrage was quickly followed by a lowering of school education in most countries, so that most voters won't do a truly informed choice anyway. Plus, the quality of political leaders has plummeted worldwide in the last two or three decades, so even if most citizens were well-educated and well-informed, they could only vote for idiots anyway. This has been the situation in Italy for a while.
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Plenty supposedly well-educated and well-informed people have managed to destroy companies, crash economies and makes disastrous mistakes.
 
Proof of citizenship and residency (fuck off with your living abroad and getting a say, military excluded), proof of competency (idiots are too susceptible to manipulation) and make it a legal requirement to go and vote, fixed penalty if you don't that doubles each time
 
Yes, but difficult is a subjective word.


Virtually every country requires an ID to vote, and citizenship. That should be a BARE minimum.

If you look at the United States historically, originally to vote you had to be a property owner, and the different colonies had different value markers assigned to the owning of the property to determine if you were eligible. Today, people would FLIP out, but it makes some sense in actuality. To vote you had to have a vested interest and investment in the land. That makes sense at the core. When you own something, you tend to value it more - we see this in simple day to day activities with how people treat public spaces compared to their home, for example.

No, it will never go back to that - nor am I advocating for that, but it does show how we have weakened voting requirements exponentially in the US.
 
Home / land ownership, gender and much more have been used in the past. History will show you the consequences. Plenty of countries you can move to and experience what it is like to live through life without a voice.

If you believe in freedom, you need your democracy to be free from someone else's prescribed qualifiers.

Tbh it's the sort of question I would expect from someone in the bottom 49% of intelligence. Be careful how others would judge your worthiness.
 
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But seriously, voter ID and then let folks vote with their phone into a secure messaging system. Would avoid the old folks being bussed to voting centers and being told to vote "two down" leading us into a hanging chad nightmare as well as stuffing ballots, the dead still voting, illegals voting, etc. I don't buy the argument that requiring SOME form of ID magically disenfranchises swaths of poor people but nor do I discount that having to physically go to a place surrounded by sign waving folks might deter people for whatever reason.
 
jason10mm said:
fYrgQeH.jpeg


But seriously, voter ID and then let folks vote with their phone into a secure messaging system. Would avoid the old folks being bussed to voting centers and being told to vote "two down" leading us into a hanging chad nightmare as well as stuffing ballots, the dead still voting, illegals voting, etc. I don't buy the argument that requiring SOME form of ID magically disenfranchises swaths of poor people but nor do I discount that having to physically go to a place surrounded by sign waving folks might deter people for whatever reason.
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ID does disinfranchise people who are too poor to own a car or need a passport for holidays. Plus it can be rigged (bus pass ok for over 60s but not for anyone else?!) Knocking doors in the GE in one deprived area something like 10% of the residents I got had no ID. The need? One or two people were charged with fraud in the last election.... out of tens of millions of voters. It was significantly less than actual elected politicians prosecuted during that term.

I read there was an average of 600 people turned away from voting in UK election in each constituency... in some seats that could have swung the result.

Yes there was the opportunity to apply for an ID ticket for free but many didn't know how or bother in time.

They should allow the government posted poling card to be used (if neccessary) or better yet... have no ID and automatic registration.

Perhaps the one answer to satisfy everyone (although I was dead against it when mooted 15 years ago) is to have a national ID card. Everyone gets one. You could even do away with all other sorts of ID and just record license to drive etc to that ID.
 
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Roxkis_ii said:
Everyone is affected by polices made by politicians, and so everyone should be able to vote on them.
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Even children?

Successful businesses aren't run that way. Successful families aren't run that way.

Why would successful nations be run that way?
 
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It's a bad idea because the government is incredibly corrupt. I have no doubt they would use it to abuse power and discriminate against certain groups of people.
 
Men_in_Boxes said:
Why don't we have children vote?
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Because we as a society have determined that being an adult is a prerequisite for voting, even though there are a lot of children under 18 who are smarter than most adults. It's a mostly arbitrary distinction that used to be 21 in the USA but was recently lowered to 18 in the 70s, and is even lower in some other countries.

Businesses, families, and nations are different things. Why should different things be expected to be run the same way?
 
6502 said:
ID does disinfranchise people who are too poor to own a car or need a passport for holidays. Plus it can be rigged (bus pass ok for over 60s but not for anyone else?!) Knocking doors in the GE in one deprived area something like 10% of the residents I got had no ID. The need? One or two people were charged with fraud in the last election.... out of tens of millions of voters. It was significantly less than actual elected politicians prosecuted during that term.

I read there was an average of 600 people turned away from voting in UK election in each constituency... in some seats that could have swung the result.

Yes there was the opportunity to apply for an ID ticket for free but many didn't know how or bother in time.

They should allow the government posted poling card to be used (if neccessary) or better yet... have no ID and automatic registration.

Perhaps the one answer to satisfy everyone (although I was dead against it when mooted 15 years ago) is to have a national ID card. Everyone gets one. You could even do away with all other sorts of ID and just record license to drive etc to that ID.
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Is there any state where getting a non-driver identification card is restricted? Or the low fee can't be waived?

If you are so disconnected from society that you can function without ANY type of positive ID then maybe you are also too disconnected to be voting? Even just showing a voter registration card would be an improvement.
 
If only people who work in hard sciences and are exactly six foot tall could vote then the media would just focus them so hard with messaging that they would end up not competent to vote.
 
Rentahamster said:
Because we as a society have determined that being an adult is a prerequisite for voting, even though there are a lot of children under 18 who are smarter than most adults. It's a mostly arbitrary distinction that used to be 21 in the USA but was recently lowered to 18 in the 70s, and is even lower in some other countries.
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But why did we choose to omit children from voting?

Rentahamster said:
Businesses, families, and nations are different things. Why should different things be expected to be run the same way?
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The same principals can often be applied to different things. Good principles lead to good results.
 
Nah, the opposite. "I'd make tons of changes if I were in-charge", but the few related to voting would be:

1) A universal ID for each citizen (that's more sophisticated and secure than a fucking social security #, in the US)
2) Election Day is a national holiday (again the states - if people are concerned about an overabundance of holidays, I'd axe one of the two holidays we have specifically devoted to veterans and war outside of Independence Day).
3) Voting is done over the internet, with voting IDs tied to citizen universal IDs and hopefully citizens use the holiday time to think about their choices (lol). A limited number of physical locations to vote because most people should vote on the net.
4) Axe first past-the-post voting everywhere because it's the 21st century goddammit

The idea here is to make voting more accessible. As dumb as people can be, I fear permitting statutory limitations would inevitably be abused for the sake of partisanship.
 
Paltheos said:
The idea here is to make voting more accessible. As dumb as people can be, I fear permitting statutory limitations would inevitably be abused for the sake of partisanship.
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Do you think the current system isn't abused for the sake of corruption?
 
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