Should the ignorant be given a vote?

[MaskedOne]

As the saying goes, it's a free country. I know we have a bunch of ignorant people, but one of our rights is to vote. We can't take that away from some people and let others vote. It wouldn't be fair. As much as I would like to have people be more educated in the system and politics, we have to let it be. The founding fathers wouldn't want us to mess with it.

Err, not only can we restrict voting but we currently do. Convicted felons lose the right to vote. Now whether restricting voting based on knowledge is a good idea might be debatable (I can go either way depending on my mood) but voting isn't an absolute right, it can be lost.

Plus the Founders expected us to screw with the Constitution, that's why steps to do so are built in. They made it difficult to be sure but the option has been there from the beginning. If I trusted the country at all then I'd say that we're well past the time that holding a Constitutional Convention to address various things would be profitable. I don't actually trust the country enough to open the Constitution up to endless revision but I wouldn't mind some Amendments going through.

[ThePaganMafia]

Another issue is that restricting the vote of the "ignorant" can generally be interchanged with restrict in the vote of the "poor" given that is who such a policy would affect the most. The poorest would probably lose more political power(not that they have much).

[Tylluan Penry]

Funny thing, in the UK the Queen is not allowed to vote. I remember querying this when I was very young, and an incense teacher exclaming, 'Well of course her Majesty does not vote, girl! Her wish is our command!'
And people wonder why I'm a republican...

[Dumuzi]

People want to deny the 'ignorant' to vote until they are the ones being denied the vote

[Shahaku]

I draw the line at consent. If a person is deemed incapable of consent (dependent adults, minors, etc) then I'm going to assume they are also mentally incapable of voting. I figure that's a decent line. It's still subject to misuse, but just about everything is.

[Tylluan Penry]

I think prisoners should be given the vote.

[Medusa]

I think prisoners should be given the vote.

Hmm. Well we do take away some of their rights as felons, such as hey, no guns for you, no hanging around kids (depending upon your crime etc). But I guess I don't have a problem with them voting.

[monsno_leedra]

Hmm. Well we do take away some of their rights as felons, such as hey, no guns for you, no hanging around kids (depending upon your crime etc). But I guess I don't have a problem with them voting.

That raises an interesting question. One of the reason's people question who should vote is awareness of things which calls into question a prisoner's social awareness and interaction. A life sentence would seem to suggest a lack of connection to social and political influences ongoing in the community which would affect / effect them. Don't have the number's but I vaguely recall statistically a large percentage of long term prisoners who've been released will get re-arrested as the prison system is all they know and the outside system is so foreign to them once they get up in age.

I suppose theory wise being in prison could be seen as another form of social ignorance regarding what is going on within and influencing society and its politics. Not short term incarcerations but long term or life sentences, especially isolation usages. Figure prison or even jail culture has its own set of rules and social structure and permissions.

[MaskedOne]

I'm not necessarily in favor of letting current prisoners vote. I wouldn't mind making the ban on voting by convicts who've served their time temporary though. Apparently though, this is already the case in a number of states

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felo...nfranchisement

[Hawkfeathers]

People deemed mentally incapacitated by the courts can't vote. But a lot of Alzheimers patients don't get court-certified, and some go vote with no idea what they're doing. No matter where you set the bar, there will be some leeway. We can't really declare ignorance as a reason, because there are some who'll claim religious persecution. I know a local woman, for example, who isn't allowed to read/watch any news because her husband says it upsets her too much and he wants her to be happy. She votes for whoever he tells her to, and has no knowledge of anything going on in the world besides grocery prices. This is their brand of religion. So there's that......