To think you should have to demonstrate a basic understanding of the facts before being allowed to vote

[Bearbehind]

Ok, I appreciate this is purely hypothetical is it could never be enforced but, it does astound me when a proportion of the electorate, albeit hopefully small, are so clueless they come out with comments like I've seen this morning which included:-

-Looking forward to doing some online shopping for items from the USA as they'd be cheaper now the pound has dropped

-Being surprised that the markets have fallen following the vote to leave and not realising their vote would have that effect

-Thinking this decision might pave the way for Norway to hold a referendum to leave the EU too

It's bad enough we all have to filter through the outright lies, like the money saved on the EU which would go straight to the NHS, and the scarcity of facts but people making decisions when their basic understanding is so poor is downright scary.

I understand the frustration at people thinking their vote means something other than what it actually does.

I very much disagree with your OP, it is a horrendous affront to democracy and would lead to the situation of vast groups of people being disqualified from voting for facetious reasons.

That being said, we could implement very strict rules around campaigning such as:

• Each party/side only being allowed to present facts that had been vetted by an independent panel for veracity.
• Significantly limited coverage / campaigning to a simple factual proposal of what they were suggesting
• Getting all voters to watch a video summarising the key points of both/all sides before voting
• No bloody ad hominem attacks when you can't be bothered to debate a point properly
• Respectful debate

Obviously very hard to implement and unlikely to happen but at least then the impetus would be on the parties to run a proper campaign rather than on abandoning key democratic principles.

I realise I'm never going to convince those who disagree wth me but it wouldn't matter if you were a cleaner or a professor- no one would automatically be excluded. All I'm saying is the demarcation line should be that everyone understands what they are voting for.

I will never be convinced that that is too much to ask.

The implementation of those rules would significantly improve matters, DodosNest.....

This was done in some of the southern states of the US when black people first got the vote. Funnily enough they were never deemed to get the answers right, no matter what they answered.

You got any ideas for class based laws modelled on Jim Crow OP?

a professor, a cleaner, a council worker, a teacher, on benefits, a shop worker or whatever. We all should always have equal say.

Has anyone said they shouldn't? Patronising or what?

Of course everyone can have a say, and can vote for whatever they want, provided they know what they're actually voting for - as explained upthread

The amount of voters remorse from 'leave' voters who seem to have only just realised the implications, is embarrassing to say the least

My local Facebook site was full of -illiterate- women asking where they should go to vote. They had clearly never exercised their right to vote before, but off they went to defend British democracy against the forriners. Thank you Kent.

Absolutely, if I failed to comprehend the situation to enough of an extent that I couldn't pass a basic test on it then I shouldn't be allowed to influence the outcome

Aah, but what if you were 100% sure you could pass a basic test, and then failed? And didn't understand why?

My very eldery mum who has absolutely no aptitude for politics voted leave.

On casually asking her why, it was because she now hopes we get more UK tomatoes in the shops instead of those tasteless ones from Holland and Spain.

But we are a democracy and everyone should be able to vote whatever their reasons.

Costa I was trying to demonstrate that whatever walk of life you come from that shouldn't have & doesn't have any sway on how important your vote is. Everyone is entitled to vote. It's not up to anyone to decide who can & cannot vote. If you start at comprehension tests then where do you stop? I wasn't being patronising but obviously you've taken it that way which wasn't my intention.
As I've said previously each vote is personal & on that voters conscience only. If they have "voters remorse" then that is up to them to deal with.
We must abide by the voting majority, we may not like it but thats life in a democracy.

You are not being unreasonable.

I don't think it should be an intelligence test, but maybe have at least some idea of the repercussions if things do/don't happen. Kinda scary to leave a country's fate in the hands of people who hardly follow politics.

I think what someone said about no false facts and forcing people to watch a video summarising both sides would be good, although it would be hard to implement imo (the video).

Getting all voters to watch a video summarising the key points of both/all sides before voting

This is way better than my idea of demonstrating a basic understanding and actually potential possible if difficult to monitor.

The point I've been making all along is that it doesn't matter which way you voted as long as you understand the implications of doing so.

Today has been a very sorry lesson in the fact that a worrying proportion of the electorate had no clue about what their vote meant.

- Each party/side only being allowed to present facts that had been vetted by an independent panel for veracity.

Yes, absolutely, the lies and promises that are made with no intention of following through with them are disgusting.

whatever walk of life you come from that shouldn't have & doesn't have any sway on how important your vote is.

And my point is that no-one has suggested banning cleaners or benefit claimants from voting

We've all heard the same arguments. Many have put their own slant/interpretation on those arguments.

How do you test for understanding there? It's a difference of opinion.

And what is important to me may not be important to you. Who's right?

YABVVVU

How do you test for understanding there? It's a difference of opinion.

And what is important to me may not be important to you. Who's right?

I agree, but I think the point is that they know, "okay, if leave, this bad thing will happen. But I'm willing to accept that for this good thing that will also happen" rather than "we need to leave before all the foreigners get our jobs!" or "omg we're all gonna DIE if we leave wtf everyone vote remain!".

A test would be incredibly hard to carry out in practice, but theoretically I think it would be good.

Watch a video of the "facts" before they vote? Oh. My. God.

So who really knows the facts about remain then? who knows if we were going to have a treaty imposed on us that said we should have the single currency?

what are the facts about voting labour/lib dem/tory? that your MP will fiddle their expenses, be an anti semite or promise no tuition fees and then impose them.

Could you really see this in a video?

the facts are exactly what you choose them to be. there are only two irrefutable facts that if you breathe in, you will breathe out. that's it.

Everything else is just what you determine to be "the facts".

Is it a fact that the M25 is a really busy road? well yes if you look at it at rush hour but no if you look at it at 3am.

is it a fact that the pound would fall? well yes, if you look at it today but next year - who knows?

some people on here have a great deal of difficulty in distinguishes facts from "the best guess I can make based on past experience, future projections and my knowledge of the subject"

How do you test the understanding of the implications of voting a certain way? it will have different implications for different people based on their jobs, life experiences, home life etc.

I think OP you need to go and do a bit of reading up on philosophy, history and the rights of man.

I don't give a shiny shit whether your mum voted to leave because she wanted local tomatoes or because she hated Cameron or because she wanted to make Eurovision fairer. I care that she voted. but her reasons are just that - her reasons.

What you have suggested in your opening posts and subsequent ones is exactly the same as the National Front. how do you feel about being so closely allied to them OP?

Rather than pass a test could they not just force everyone to watch two quick videos, one by leave one by remain, before marking their ballot paper.

They could show them on a loop at the polling station

That way people don't have to demonstrate an understanding of the facts but they have to at least have had the information given to them.

So who really knows the facts about remain then?

For the record, I didn't mark my paper for this exact reason - I honestly felt I didn't know enough. And I looked in to it for weeks and discussed it with a bunch of people and watched debate after debate but I just didn't feel confident enough either way.

But there was so much pressure and so little information available; having more information available would certainly be a good thing. Besides, no one is saying they can't vote because they want tasty English tomatoes, but rather that shouldn't be the extent of their knowledge on the whole thing.

Maggie that is very insulting to the thousands of people who have watched debates, engaged on social media, spent hours ploughing through stats etc.

so if the video is just on in the background, how are you going to ensure that people stay to watch it? and what if they don't speak English well enough to understand it?

who is going to vet these videos to make sure they contain the mythical "facts" that the OP keeps going on about?

No one knew what would happen if we remained did they. and to be honest we have never actually really been a part of the EU because we had so many opt outs and we weren't in the ERM or the single currency or Schengen. the EU did itself over with the Maastricht treaty. it should have said then "either you are in and that means in to everything or you are out" we have been living some sort of EU half life for years and the EU have tolerated this because we are a net contributor and they want our money.

People have been expressing concerns about things from the EU for years and years and years and no one has listened. they have been shouted down as racists and what should have happened is that they should have been engaged with. not shunted aside. there is only so much shunting aside that people will tolerate and last night all of those chickens came home to roost.

the trouble is there are far too many politicians who resemble the OP. they only engage with people that they think are sufficiently intelligent and understand The Facts ignoring the others and not really understanding that at the end of the day, the vote of "idiot, bigot" that they dismissed and wouldn't engage with has exactly as much weight as anyone else.

Overheard 2 x Year 12 students this morning (thankfully not old enough to vote)
1 - "So what continent will be be in now we've left Europe?"
2 - "It's gonna be great, we get to be our own continent now"

mummymeister I've repeatedly said I have no issue with people who understood what their vote meant- despite your insistence, that makes be nothing like the Natinal Front.

If person felt British tomatoes were more important than the pound nose diving then that's up to them- my issue is with those who just thought they'd get British tomatoes and nothing else would change or those who got their economic theory so wrong they thought a weak pound made foreign purchases cheaper, or those didn't even realise Norway wasn't in the EU.

Seems there were a lot of people who failed to get any grasp on the magnitude of this vote

mummymeister there would be one from leave one from remain, so it would be of an advertising pitch.

You'd just get people to watch it before they voted, they could be fairly short.

OK no you can't force people to listen you can only try.

It's not insulting to people who've already researched it, if they are so easily offended at such a thing I would suggest the issue lies with them.

YANBU, OP, even though of course YABU really. Someone on another thread today said she had been going to vote remain but didn't get to the polling station for various reasons, but that her vote wouldn't have counted anyway because her area had overwhelmingly voted to leave. I kind of think that if you want a vote you should be a bit less totally fucking uninterested than to be that ignorant. The only thing worse would have been to turn up at the polling station today and wonder why it was closed.

God, that Standard article Bear! I had to check the URL twice. It reads like something in the Daily Mash.