Are many Americans too uninformed to be able to vote?

Question

Should you be required to demonstrate that you at least understand the very basics of government and the Constitution before being able to cast a vote?

A very high percentage of the U.S. electorate isn't very well qualified to vote, if by "qualified" you mean having a basic understanding of our government, its functions and its challenges. Almost half of the American public doesn't know that each state gets two senators. More than two-thirds can't explain the gist of what the Food and Drug Administration does.
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/JonahGoldberg/2007/08/01/too_uninformed_to_vote

Matt D...I'm sure our founding fathers would never dream that our schools would evolve into indoctrination centers or that the bible, which back in their days was the main text they taught from, would be abolished from the class room...our kids are growing up without the moral foundation that kids used to get at home AND in school..even if it were only till the 8th grade...I'm sure they didn't invision the MTV zombies that have the right to vote and cancel out the fewer and fewer informed votes there are....I have to disagree with you on this one brother.

Answer 1

this is so sadly true, but at least they vote, most American do not bother to exercise this right, yet will whine about what big bad government is doing to them.

another contributor, in my opinion, is that our children are not taught the history of our nation, only broad generalizations if any. many liberal instructors instilling self hatred for being an American so they feel only gloom and doom and feel helpless.

i wish everyone would take the personal responsibility to really consider who they vote for and why. read both sides with as open a mind as possible and determine which view is a good fit for your own morals and ethics.

Answer 2

Personally, i don't think the candidate or the party should be mentioned in the voting process.
I think they should ask how you feel about certain issues, and how the majority feels should choose the candidates.
That way it forces people to vote on the issue, and be responsible informed voters, rather than voting party lines. It also prevents all the silly sideshows that are a major force driving our political system.

as far as having to know how our system works, i think that should be a requirement to graduate high school, or get a GED rather than vote.
You have to remember, voting is a guaranteed right, not a privilege. if it was a privilege I would almost have to support the idea, but once you start allowing the government to put requirements on rights, there will be no end.

Answer 3

Nope. Constitution says so. It is our right to vote by virtue of having been born free. Freedom encompasses all conditions, from enlightenment right on down to deliberate ignorance, which is far worse than situational ignorance. Would you require that a citizen have this same level of knowledge to exercise any other right provided under the law? Are some rights worth more than others?

The tricky thing about being a free people is that we cannot compel a certain standard of civic conduct. We can value it, encourage it, promote it, provide means for developing it, but we cannot force people to acquire or retain such knowledge, or care about it, or use it in any meaningful way. As much as we are free to vote, we are also free not to vote, regardless of how detrimental that is to the health and vitality of functional democracy.

However, imagine what happens when only the monied, educated classes are permitted the vote...which was the case during the Republic's infancy. Only white, male literate landowners could vote: no laborers, no tenants, no women or blacks or natives. Once the restriction to landowners was lifted, any white male could vote, but in many states such people faced poll tests, challenges to their literacy intended to prevent them from voting. The same thing happened in Florida in 2000 and in New Mexico and Arizona in 2004. Poll taxes, literacy tests, landowner requirements, all have been deemed unConstitutional barriers to the free exercise of the right to vote.

We are all well-qualified to vote because we are Americans. Our Constitution says so and it is the law of the land. We are a nation that values the Rule of Law over the Rule of Man. If we value a better informed electorate at the polls, then it is up to we, the people, to find the means to reach out to each and every one of our neighbors, to engage, to foment the cause of democracy in our daily lives, not merely when the election cycle is in season. It means we must make self-governing a priority, instead of abdicating our authority to Britney and Lindsay and Brangelina and sensationalist "news" outlets that cover the immaterial and inconsequential, because to do so is easier than generating independent thought. We must discuss our national business with the same interest and fervor dedicated to sports playoffs, hot movies, fad diets, fashion and other matters we regularly elevate to the level of national importance, although they have little to do with either the nation or importance of any kind. If we wish to change the Information Intelligence Quotient of the average American citizen, we will have to redirect the sources from which the average American citizen acquires his or her information.

While I understand your point and very well appreciate the frustration it embodies, I have to advocate for the Constitution: American citizens from the age of 18 upward have the right to vote simply by virtue of being born free. It is one of our most precious inalienable rights and tampering with it would undermine the very principles that define what it is to BE American.

Answer 4

an informed vote is amazingly extreme on the checklist. the subject is that there are too a lot of human beings available who vote for human beings whom they have no concept the place they stand on the subject concerns. Too a lot of human beings will vote a strict party line and many times not even know what that party represents, much less the place the candidate lies. next up the checklist of training is believing the soundbytes of the candidate as antagonistic to heavily analyzing the declare being made. If a candidate have been to declare "I help the troops. I voted for a pay improve." they might help this with the particular vote mutually as ignoring that it replaced right into a vote for a decrease improve than inflation or that it replaced into additionally a vote against an even bigger improve. human beings, you could help a candidate without helping their entire platform. Your candidate might desire to be an identical area of the abortion difficulty as you're and against your place on the conflict or vice versa. you do not might desire to become an endorser of all in basic terms because of the fact your *maximum needed* difficulty is ultimate represented with the aid of the candidate. It amazes me how a lot of human beings, having offered right into a particular party and consequently a particular candidate can not admit the guy has any flaws nor that the contest has any effective factors. This divisiveness is eating up our united states of america. the two Bush and Clinton have good and undesirable factors. it somewhat is okay to confess that. tutor your self on each and all of the applicants and their positions this 3 hundred and sixty 5 days. tutor your self on who're enemies are and the place they're. tutor your self on what they are going to do if we don't combat them. And solid an informed VOTE!

Answer 5

If our founding fathers never saw that as a potential problem and wrote a law to guard against it, Im sure its not a problem. Citizenship requires patriotism, not a functioning mental model of the way our govt currently operates.

Answer 6

This is a hard question to say the least. Part of me wants to say, yes if you are going to vote you should know some basics of government. I guess this sentiment is fueled by my experience interning last summer in a Senate office when we got so many calls from citizens who had no clue about basic concepts of federalism, bicameralism, separation of powers, etc... Some guy kept calling our office asking for us to fix his street light for example. This is partially fueled by the fact I am a political science / history double major.

The other part says no because you kind of have the right to be an idiot in a free society. If people do not care about their government, I cannot help it.

Answer 7

HA! That is rich!

We can't even get picture voter ID cards to get passed because the libs are afraid the voter fraud tactics will be upset.

We can't get everyone to agree that the English language should be required when becoming a citizen of the United States.

We can't get congress to agree that illegal aliens have broken the laws of our land and need to be treated as criminals rather then 'undocumented citizens'!

Now, if we can't get our elected officials to stop acting as 'uninformed' or be able to demonstrate a basic understanding of the very basics then how can we expect our citizens to?

Answer 8

The ignorant vote is the only way that people like Hillary even have a chance of being elected. So I don't see that vote being eliminated ant time soon....

Answer 9

Walter Cronkite: U.S. Too Ignorant to Vote

The man once known as the most trusted journalist in America no longer trusts Americans to vote for their own leaders, saying average citizens are just too ignorant to cast their ballots wisely.

"We [as a nation] are not educated well enough to perform the necessary act of intelligently selecting our leaders," CBS News legend Walter Cronkite told the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication last week.

In quotes picked up by the Los Angeles Times, Cronkite said journalists need to find a way to better inform the public, suggesting they pressure their employers to replace the current roundups of celebrity profiles and personal health and finance pieces with "the news of the day."

"If we fail at that," Cronkite warned, "our democracy, our republic, I think, is in serious danger."

Answer 10

HOW DO YOU PROVE THE UNDERLYING PREMISE? NOTWITHSTANDING THAT MANY VOTERS MAY BE UNINFORMED ON SPECIFIC ISSUES SOMEHOW THEY ARE SMART ENOUGH TO THROW THE RASCALS OUT WHEN THAT TIME ARRIVES. TO "QUALIFY" VOTERS IS TO RETURN TO THE PRE-CIVIL RIGHTS DAYS...WHEN YOU HAD TO TAKE A WRITTEN TEST...OR OWN PROPERTY IN ORDER TO VOTE. THEY MAY NOT HAVE A FULL GRASP OF ALL OF GOVERNMENT BUT THEY ARE SMART ENOUGH TO KNOW THAT THEIR VOTE MATTERS.