Conditional Suffrage?

[OtisTheMarsupial]

Your idea is horrible.

Educated people already vote much more often than uneducated.

In 2004, 23% of people who hadn't finished 10th grade voted, whereas 77% of people with advanced degrees voted. 52% of high school grads who didn't go to college voted and 72% of bachelor degree holders voted.

http://www.census.gov/population/soc...04/tab05-1.xls

Where'd you even get this idea? From your subjective view that voters are uneducated? Take a look at the statistics. The people you want to restrict from voting already don't vote.

[Warik]

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Educated people already vote much more often than uneducated.

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Your point? Does the fact that you have a college degree or a PHD mean you know anything about politics or what is good for this country?

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From your subjective view that voters are uneducated?

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Don't you mean "from your objective view that less than 100% of the people who are registered voters are competent enough to exercise the privilege?"

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Take a look at the statistics. The people you want to restrict from voting already don't vote.

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I take this to mean that you are assuming that I believe that 100% of uneducated people are not qualified to vote and therefore should have their right to vote taken away. Even though that is completely wrong and not even close to what I said (you know, since I didn't even mention education at all), I'll humor you.

Assume that 100% of the uneducated vote for the wrong guy (according to me). If we define "uneducated" to mean "didn't finish high school," then according to the link you provided, over ten million people voted for the "wrong guy" in the last election. Even if half the people voted for the right guy, that's still five million who voted for the wrong guy in a race that was decided by less than 4 million votes.

I'm fairly confident that you're assuming I'm a Republican or Libertarian, since conditional suffrage is not something typically promoted by the Democratic party (if at all)... meaning that you believe I want to somehow rig the system so that the Republican candidate has an unfair advantage. If that is the case, does your "the people you want to restrict from voting already don't vote" comment mean that you are saying that people who are uneducated vote Democrat? I don't think that's the case at all. The fact that a friend of mine, who is an HS dropout, voted Republican seems like a good enough counterexample to me.

I have a better idea: Why don't we stop talking about education and start talking about voter competence, which is what this thread is supposed to be about anyway.