Earning the Vote

[Ravenshire]

You seem to have misinterpreted (quite fairly if I'm to be honest) my emphatic NO as a refutation of all criteria, where I was simply refuting your proposed additional criteria.

Citizenship (or, recognized permanent residency) seems fairly obvious to me. The citizens of a country/state/county/municipality should be the ones deciding the laws/lawmakers for that country/state/county/municipality.

Age is more a line in the sand, but an already established one that most find reasonable. With age comes understanding. No one believes a 4-year old can make an informed decision about political matters, nor does anyone think most 30+ are unable. 18 is the acceptable age here, and I have no problem with it. What I would take issue with, is politicians arbitrarily changing it and disenfranchising millions of a right they already hold.

I tend to think of rights the way I think of plumbing. The more complicated you make the pipes, the more likely you'll plug up the works.

So, by agreeing to an age criteria, we agree that someone needs to be able to make reasonable choices and not be swayed unduly by manipulative tactics in order to make voting a fair and sensible process that won't do more harm than good.

Our only disagreement is over what checks and balances are best employed to ensure this.

I tend towards thinking that in the highly complex modern world, globalised political and economic issues are such, and the ability to manipulate through post-AI mass-media such, that simply being 18+ is not enough of an obvious measure or safeguard anymore.

My dad was born before Hitler invaded Poland. He's badly manipulated by political rhetoric in every election cycle. Age is no deterrent to poor decisions.

Our disagreement seems to be over how draconian our solutions would be. You would divest millions of the right to vote. That, to me, is a terrible thing.

Education and perceived intelligence (but especially education) is no magical preventative to making poor decisions. I know university graduates who voted Trump. No one is immune to political manipulation so trying to limit participation by that criteria, which is what education and intelligence testing really is, is a fool's game. It also provides a smaller pool for the powers that be to manipulate.