To believe that people should have to pass a test to vote?

[ZanyWriter]

If you can’t understand basic political issues or policies, why should your vote count as much as someone who does? AIBU to think voting shouldn’t be a universal right?

You aren't supposed to know that.

At least I wouldn't want them to know that I know 😉😎

Technically - its only compulsory to get your name crossed off the list
What you write or draw on the paper is pure choice

or you simply dont enroll at 18

imo the process is not fair or rigorous in any way. Lots of people definitely go on vibes, many joked about not having been arsed to look closely at the evidence (although they weren’t joking – they really couldn’t be arsed), and a lot of it had the feel of a school break time – people making a case based on cute/schoolboy observations. It all was a bit like a call centre fag break. I totally lost faith in the process also.

Rather than redesigning the electorate, I'd redesign the election.

To get elected the candidate should poll over 50% of the possible votes in a constituency. That ensures they are the most popular candidate. If that returns no candidate then the constituency has no MP. People not voting then have a positive rather than negative effect.

Better have no MP, than one who only represents 15% of the population.

YANBU.

@ZanyWriter

so each MP puts a name in a pot.
draw ten random names out
they write ten multiple choice questions
on current day things/politics etc

if you get ten right you get ten votes
zero right zero votea

How about sortition ?

Your opinion is superior to anyone else's just because you think it should.

Is it?

I was curious about how this would look in reality, so I looked up the results.

50% of the possible votes or more.

In 2019 there would have been 11 MPs.

In 2024 there would have been none!

This is self-selecting anyway. A lot of stupid people don't vote.

Have you thought this one through or maybe you are one of the "stupid" ones who shouldn't be allowed the vote. There's no limit to the number of candidates in an election, so how often do you think they'd get over 50% of the vote?

TBF Putin always got a really high percentage of the vote in Russia 😁

I'm a useful idiot from a family of useful idiots who all vote differently and fall out a lot about it. What are the questions for this test? I would love to see if I can pass!

Imagine if I am indeed to stupid to vote. That would be one less vote for ...

*Too stupid

No candidate over 50% = no representative. If that hurts the constituency then eventually they will have to club together to agree on someone to represent them.

No ideal. But then you'd have to say "not ideal" whilst either accepting that our current situation is ideal (and this thread has no objective basis), or accepting the the current situation isn't ideal and therefore there are other options.

Northern Ireland "managed" without it's assembly for ages, so there are precedents.

Ultimately most forms of proportional representation are designed to whittle away the minority fringes to settle on the least minority candidate. I'm merely suggesting codifying it to always return a majority candidate. Or not at all.

You only need to spell X to vote 🙃

I’m glad most people have taken this light heartedly as it was intentioned!

It’s frustrating when the vote doesn’t go your way, but that’s the way it is OP!

Do you mean 50% of the total electorate or 50% of those who actually voted?

If the former, we would currently have the grand total of NO MPs.

If the latter, we would have 95 plus the Speaker, out of 650 seats.

A possibly more realistic option would be to have a run-off election between the two highest scoring candidates, whenever no one gets over 50%. But that would be time-consuming and expensive and I'm not sure if it would really result in a more representative choice: I suspect that many people, especially if they'd supported another candidate, might not bother to vote in the run-off.

I'm a naturalised British citizen, so I have already paid for and passed a test to vote.

I get the appeal, but adding on the administrative costs either for people to vote or onto what needs to be raised in taxes is a logistical barrier before the other ethical issues many have already raised.

Never mind passing a test to vote, I think candidates should have to pass a test before standing for parliament! Not only that, there should be a higher bar for those wanting to be government ministers…