citizens should be tested before they can vote<\/a>, setting \u2018minimum standards that should lead to higher-quality decision-making by the electorate.\u2019 Accordingly: \u2018The message this would send is that voting is not just a right, but one that has to be earned.\u2019<\/p>\nMoyo claims this might not have stopped Brexit or Trump from winning their respective ballots, but given the \u2018educated\u2019 consensus on those two events it is tempting to interpret it as a means of safeguarding against such voter rebellions. At any rate, the fact that many in the comments below her article saw it that way belies her claim that testing would legitimise democracy.<\/p>\n
But whatever Moyo\u2019s motives, the other problems are numerous.<\/p>\n
First, any testing will skew voting systems in favour of the rich, without question. Richer people have more access to education, people with more formal education make more money, and richer, more educated people will be more inclined to take and pass the tests. Those the system works for would get more say in its future.<\/p>\n
Even that is assuming we could agree what you would test for. General knowledge of how our political system works is relevant, but beyond that it gets tricky. Important policy areas are frequently fought over by experts, and do not lend themselves to an easy-to-administer test.<\/p>\n
Most fundamentally, I’m sceptical that people who have spent more time in formal education vote for \u2018better\u2019 policies, another hard to define concept. Many policy trade-offs are a matter of preference, affect different groups differently, and have unexpected effects once they are implemented.<\/p>\n
Formal education already has plenty \u2013 probably too much \u2013 influence in British society. Politicians are mad keen on \u2018meritocracy\u2019, and qualifications act as barriers to wealth, influence and power in most areas of life.<\/p>\n
Barring the uneducated from voting would further reduce the power of many of the most marginal people in Britain. It is a bad idea, and should be rejected.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Even in these times where the well-heeled and well-certified are happy to bemoan how the oiks vote, it is rare for somebody to openly advance new means of restricting the franchise. But it has happened.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[869,79,875],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rightdishonourable.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3833"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rightdishonourable.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rightdishonourable.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rightdishonourable.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rightdishonourable.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3833"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/rightdishonourable.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3833\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3837,"href":"https:\/\/rightdishonourable.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3833\/revisions\/3837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rightdishonourable.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rightdishonourable.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rightdishonourable.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}