[DVaut1]

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My father-in-law who went to college but never graduated (relevant for later in the story) came up to me to discuss this at Christmas one year (he's the type of guy who doesn't have a good sense of timing for conversations.) Anyway, he says that only property owners should be entitled to vote.

"Why is that?" I ask.
He gives some line about how you should have to pay taxes to vote and property ownership ensures that.
"Really, is there a federal property tax?"
"Okay, maybe not property ownership, but they should be educated."
"There's an idea. I think you should have to have a high school diploma. If having a high school diploma makes for better voters, surely a college degree would be better. Don't you agree?"
Silence...
"And if a college degree is good, surely a graduate degree would be better. I propose only people with phd's or the equivalent in their field of study should be able to vote. Agree?"
Silence...broken a few minutes later by "I just don't think all the idiots should be able to vote."
"me either" I mumble to myself and offer him another beer.

The problem with conditional suffrage is that it will ALWAYS be used to ensure those who favor your political positions will vote and those who disfavor them will not. In short, it will always be abused.

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Of course, the rationality for such ‘knowledge tests’ inexorably leads to advocating some form of an intellectual oligarchy (when taken to its eventual conclusion, as you noted).

Which is why I’m genuinely wondering how many people here advocating such tests could legitimately pass it, and why they believe they’ll find themselves among the privileged few in power? I suspect it’s not a very high number.

I also suspect the same people who propose such tests, when they find themselves disenfranchised for not being able to answer what are rather simple questions posed by our intellectual overlords, would accuse said overlords of terrible elitism and ivory-tower subjugation.