We just went to see "Swing Vote" starring Kevin Costner as the apathetic, blue-collar nobody who, through a technical glitch, becomes the sole deciding vote in an otherwise tied Presidential election.
If you like politics, you'll love this movie. It highlights just how clueless candidates can be and how they interact with their equally clueless constituents, particularly on how politicians pander to whatever they perceive to be the desires of the public. It was genuinely funny, a little sad at times, and was an all-around enjoyable two hours.
But it sparked some heavy political debate on the ride home, and over ice cream.
When you think about it, how many people who bother to vote (a mere 40% in 2006) are really casting informed, intelligent votes? Are they voting based on serious issues, political philosphy and informed opinon? Or are they voting on who sounds the best, who has better hair or who is more like them? In 2006, I overheard people talking about basing their vote on whether or not the candidate went to church, or whether they supported a single, nonsense issue like flag burning. The general election has been a mudfest of racial innuendo and the mock patriotism of flag pins.
I guess it bothers me that the fallacious and unenlightened can influence how the country is run, which is akin to letting an 8-year-old make the financial decisions for the household. It has led to undeniable disaster in George W. Bush.
Americans on the whole are self-involved, ignorant creatures. Five minutes of Jay Walking is enough to convince anyone. It is my belief that the average voter is not casting an informed vote, and as a result, we all suffer for it. I know this goes against the very concept of freedom, but when your very survivial relies on who runs the country, doesn't it become our duty to ensure only the best candidates are chosen, based on logical, relevant criteria? So I ask:
Should there be some kind of civic exam or IQ test given as a prerequisite for voting? What would the qualifying questions consist of? Should every vote count, but only as a percentage relevant to your score, like the old three-fifths ratio the founders used for blacks? Would it help the country to allow only the informed and astute among us to cast their votes, or would it create a window of exploitation? Thoughts?
P.S. Am I serious about all this? Only a little. But I thought it'd make an intriguing topic.
Should there be an exam prior to allowing people to vote? This is a tough one. I watch Jay Walking and in fact personally had a friend that probably had the IQ of a tator tot.
But how would this system work? Would you have to score perfect on it before you were allowed to vote? Would you take the test once (when you turned 18 and initially went to register?) or would you have to take it numerous times throughout your life? If the latter was the case, would people be willing to take a test multiples times (I assume the exam questions would vary by year)? Or are you going to lose more voters this way because people simply don't want to be bothered going through that? If you had to take a road test every time your drivers license expired, would you? How would you grade such a test?
Further, passing the test doesn't necessarily mean that come election day, they'll make an educated, well thought out, informed decision. In fact, they might have just guessed correctly enough times on the exam to be awarded a "voting license." I wonder every day how some people got out of high school or are legally able to drive.
Sadly, we live in a world of lazy, apathetic, stupid people. It's a sad fact about Americans. Are we actually better off with only 40% of the public voting?
People want more Americans to vote AND they want them to vote intelligently? Never gonna happen.
A co-worker I know has never voted before - but she's adamant about it this year - she's voting for McCain because she never sees Obama wearing a flag pin. Oh yeah, and Obama rhymes with Osama and Osama is a bad guy. I'm not making this up.
I'm sure there are many reasons why people don't vote. And as Americans, it's their choice not to. Maybe they don't feel the candidates are sincere about their platforms. Maybe they're tired of seeing nothing happen year after year - candidates making promises they don't keep, "I promise to lower taxes and provide affordable health care for everyone..." Yeah right...
Maybe we have to figure out WHY people DON'T vote and start there.
While we're issuing licenses though, can we mandate that people have one to raise children?
I definitely agree that the electoral college is unnecessary. Popular vote is all you need.
What we need to be concerned about moreso is accurate vote counts. Banks and casinos can do the counting thing flawlessly. Voting machines? Not so much.
Don't forget we are not a direct Democracy. And I hope we never are. We already have class war in America. If we go to popular vote for the presidency, it would get even worse.
