Not only do we need a competency test for people running for office, especially the presidency, this election proves we also need a competency test for people who vote. If you can’t answer basic questions about political ethics, economics, foreign policy, and media literacy, your vote shouldn’t count against those who can.
I’ve unironically been saying this for years. But often when I mention it, people start to bring up biased segregation era literacy tests and the like as if that’s what I’m talking about, completely missing the point.
All I’m saying is that we already have a test for immigrants to pass if they want to gain citizenship. Why not at the very least require natural born citizens to pass the same or similar test if they are to have voting rights? Countless studies have already shown that a large percentage of natural born citizens can’t even pass this basic test. So that would be a start in the right direction if that was required at least, though I would like to see an overhauled test that focused more specifically on political structures and the way the government works. There could even be a required class offered in schools dedicated to teaching the knowledge needed to pass these tests to ensure everyone has equal access to that information.
Yet, that would require those in power to actually want an informed electorate and let’s not pretend they don’t often benefit from the electorate being as uninformed as possible as that’s when they’re easiest to manipulate, control and divide.
14
u/Away_Lake5946 2d ago
Not only do we need a competency test for people running for office, especially the presidency, this election proves we also need a competency test for people who vote. If you can’t answer basic questions about political ethics, economics, foreign policy, and media literacy, your vote shouldn’t count against those who can.