To think there should be a minimum intelligence cut-off for being allowed to vote?

[FireCanal]

Woman on train has just told her companion that "in my district, the person who gets the most votes will be the local MP, not just the government". She genuinely appears to think there is something unusual about this
She followed it up with "do you think there is a polling station in Liverpool?"

Not really, the Labour party was originally founded by the mining unions.

fuck me! why would you even post something like that?

i have a PhD and was in a total muddle about what to do in the polling station. I managed to do my parliamentary vote ok but was left sided by being allowed THREE votes in my local election.

I was torn between green and labour . I put three labour votes what a plonker

Marx predicted a workers' takeover as capitalism was too conspicuously unfair to survive as was. Even Adam Smith defined profit as 'a deduction of labour'. Consumerism and credit took a lot of steam out of an angry working class. Fuck politics - the new iPhone's out!

The carrot of 'aspiration' and 'wealth creation' trickle-down just doesn't stand up any more. We shall see...

I've gone a bit off topic so... Universal suffrage should be exactly that. Everyone gets to vote. If some kind of qualifying test came in.. who would set it? what would the criteria be? You could get into some very Nazi/ Apartheid style categorizations of ordinary people.

I can imagine an entire new government department to administer the test, a Minister for Intelligence. They'd have to get places for us to sit the exam and people to mark it. Taxes would go up to pay for it all. How would it work? We could all take the life in the UK exam that new British citizens take perhaps? We'd obviously have to take it every 5 years at least in case something had happened that made us lose our mental faculties in that time.

Sorry should've added it's a daft idea that wouldn't work in case anyone thinks I'm serious

I believe it was Winston Churchill who came out with "the best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter"

What a revolting thread title. It could never be light hearted.

I think it'd be far better if the politicians and MPs had to have and prove a certain level of knowledge. So a proper understanding of the economy and how a recession comes about, knowledge of the tax and welfare systems etc etc. On top of that they should be taught and strive to improve their communication skills. So George Osbourne should be able to sit down with anyone and explain what the deficit means and what we can do about it (for example). Basically a plain English campaign in a way.

There should also be a body that regulates them all and provides a list of standards and guidance they have to follow. Like you would for another profession that can fuck things royally if they advise wrongly.

On a seperate note discussions like this always make me thing of The Wisdom of the Crowds. Basically the idea is that a crowd, no matter how well or poorly informed, will always make a better choice than an individual. A very interesting idea and book. Worth a read.

It's hard to come up with a culture-blind intelligence test. Not to mention that there is a substantial incentive against doing so in this case, especially if there is a party in power that polls better among some ethnic groups than others (your UKIP, our Republicans, for example).

We had literacy tests for voter registration in the US until the 1960s. That sounds like a good idea in theory- if someone is illiterate, it's hard for them to make an informed choice when they vote, right? In practice, though, the officials in charge of voter registration had a lot of discretion over who got asked what questions. If you looked like the kind of person who they wanted to pass (generally white and not too poor), you might get asked questions like "who is the president of the US". The questions got harder if you were black. The officials in charge of voter registration probably had their own political leanings, so the difficulty of the test could have varied by what they thought your political leanings might be (those are pretty well predicted in the US by demographics, so it's not as if it's terribly hard to guess who's likely to vote which way). They were outlawed in 1965 because they were being used to discriminate against black voters.

That's interesting about the wisdom of the crowd MsPerfect I heard something similar when on jury service. That's why there's 12 jurors who are ordinary people of all backgrounds, who aren't as qualified as the judge but they make the decision not the judge.

I apologise to anyone I have offended. That certainly was not my intention. I did mean this thread to be light hearted, that is why I put it in AIBU.
I am not pro eugenics, anti Liverpudlians or seriously think anyone should be banned from voting. I was, however, shocked that someone who appeared to be in their early 30s and on a work trip with a colleague could be so clueless about the basic workings of a general election. And for the record, I don't think she was Liverpudlian. That is where the train terminated but we were quite some distance away. I didn't say anything about learning disabilities either, I didn't get the impression that was a factor, but yes I realise I could be wrong about that.

Op; have you any idea how ridiculous you sound?
Only 'intelligent' people can vote.

Hitler would have loved you.

FyreFly Churchill also said that democracy was the worst possible system apart from all the others. And I think he meant that seriously. Of course some voters make you despair; canvassing in Oxford in 1974 I met a lady who told me she was going to vote for Lord Valentia, who as I later fount out had been MP for the City for one Parliament fifty years earlier!

I don't think anyone is saying that the woman has learning disabilities - but the title of your thread, joke or not, implies that people with a lower IQ should not have the vote.

Have a look at this

storify.com/mencap_charity/general-election

It's not really that difficult to get a basic understanding of how government works and what the various candidates or parties stand for. You could do it with a few minutes Googling. But how often do you really think people who are not motivated enough to do that are also motivated enough to vote? I suspect that's a very rare problem, kind of like the in-person voter fraud in the US system that voter ID laws are supposedly meant to prevent. It could happen in theory, but in practice it doesn't, and laws intended to keep it from happening make it more difficult for some people to vote. It's a cure that's worse than the disease.

I'd agree that teaching is 'safer' Prole, both in the context of what's included in the curriculum and also the scrutiny teachers can receive if they stray from it. Teachers do get a grim deal nowadays. That said, the majority of mine did their absolute best by me...but the curriculum they were bound by simply didn't allow them any leeway to discuss politics. I personally see it as the only failing within an otherwise very good state education.

Op was clearly not referring to people with learning difficulties or special needs. It was clumsily worded but I got your meaning.

And basic knowledge of the political and voting system should be a compulsory subject at school... It's all very well saying that people can google for info but in addition to all the issues raised with regards googles biased system of returning results, there is the additional problem that firstly people have to recognise and acknowledge a gap in their understanding of the system, and then secondly they have to care enough to be motivated to search out the information that they don't already possess.

Drink slurm.

Cupidstunt - what I was taught appeared to match the Univ. of London Exam Board O-level curriculum when it came to exam time. I believe my teachers weren't going off piste in any way. The subjects taught were unavoidable political - you can't get into the Russian Revolutions of the rise of Hitler without it. I'll agree with your point that it all got 'safer'. So now we know why people seem to be less informed about politics today.

in my district, the person who gets the most votes will be the local MP, not just the government".
I know what she means She is saying that in her constituency people will be voting for a candidate who does well for the constituents/local community,rather than voting in line with their party political allegiences.

And basic knowledge of the political and voting system should be a compulsory subject at school

Some of our states have this. I went to high school (I think that's about years 10-13 in your system) in Maryland. We had to take a class called American Government, and had to pass a multiple-choice test on it to graduate. I think some other states do this, too (this kind of thing is, or was back then, determined on a state level here). Looking around at American politics, I'm not so sure it's that helpful.

You'd still need to inform yourself on the issues and candidates in the current election, anyway. Those change. A high school government course in 1989(!) (geez, I'm old) doesn't tell me much about issues in an election now. As I recall, my American Government class was heavy on facts like that the President serves a four-year term, but didn't talk much about the platforms of the major parties. As I understand it, that would be even worse in your system- we pretty much have two major parties, and they've at least had the same labels for my entire lifetime.

And basic knowledge of the political and voting system should be a compulsory subject at school

Never heard of PSCHE?

It was obvious the OP was being lighthearted. The pomposity of some of the replies on here is hilarious.

Op, I get your post! Some people on here are just so pearl clutchy

Well, i originally clutched my pearls to my ample bosom and declared YABU but after the election results YAsoNBU!!! The electorate are clearly as thick as pigshit!!