Voting Literacy Quizzes
In any given election, between 35% and 60% of eligible voters don't cast a ballot (https://electionlab.mit.edu/research/voter-turnout). This isn't because non-voters believe that voting is difficult. In fact, quite the opposite is true. Many of them refuse to vote simply because they don't feel that they're vote would make much of a difference. They're often detached from the news and pessimistic about politics (https://www.npr.org/2020/12/16/947182471/why-people-dont-vote). Since this population of non-voters is so large, and because it, therefore, touches a large proportion of the population that does vote, how many carelessly wander in the intermediary zone between the two? How many voters vote carelessly, or worse, yet, don't know what they're voting for at all? There could very well be a statistically significant number of them, especially if you also consider all of the political propaganda out there as well as the significance of social-desireabiltiy bias when using public opinion polls to determine voter turnout (https://electionlab.mit.edu/research/voter-turnout). And, if that's true, they might very well be a major contributor to current and potential national and global unrest. Wouldn't you want to prevent them from voting then? After all, why is there a voting age if not to prevent illiterate infants and unprepared young from influencing elections? That's why I propose that, before being able to vote at the polls, each voter pass a brief and unbiased quiz about their selected candidates and those candidates's preferences. Even two or three questions might be sufficient. This would make the voting process something of actual, verified value. The quiz could be taken as many times as the voter wants to take it, and if voters think that the quiz is biased or somehow unfair, then a majority rule can nullify the election pre-results until revised questions are posed. If you believe, however, that all of this violates people's voting rights, that it's really just some kind of Louisiana Literacy Test, for what then does your system really stand if not (potential) rule by ignorance and/or carelessness? After all, that, along with "I-voted" votes, are all that these quizzes aim to filter out, not racial and ethnic populations. And, that shouldn't be a problem, since it's unlikely that you'd have a bunch of uninformed voters revolting about how much their uninformed vote is being suppressed by these quizzes. So, please, help restore the integrity of the vote by supporting this petition. Thank you.
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