[kidcoach]

I know politically informed minimum wage folks, and some really politically-flawed doctors and upper-level managers who spend so much time on their job or kids they don't care to read into politics. The "informed voters = rich whiteys" theory is just an assumption that infers people who want informed voters are often racist. Lets leave race out of such discussions and stick with how we could make an unbiased solution (race/class blind qualifier tests or whatever).

[will_brown]

>Lets leave race out of such discussions and stick with how we could make an unbiased solution (race/class blind qualifier tests or whatever).

2008 voter turn outs: whites = 64%; blacks = 60%; Asian = 32%; Hispanic 31%.

education: 9th grade = 23%; High school grades = 50%; some college = 65%; BA = 71%; advanced degree = 76%.

Income shows the exact same, that as income goes up voter turn out goes up.

In theory I would agree with you that an unbiased solution resulting in 100% voter turn out across the board is the way to go. However, until such a solution manifests itself, how can race or any other existing bias be left out of the discussion? Isn't addressing existing bias in voter turn out part of the solution?

[kidcoach]

This is an interesting point. I suppose the counter would be that we only want the politically informed people who would naturally self-select anyway. It shouldn't matter if there is a bias in previous voter-turnout as many of the previous people who did vote would now not qualify, and the non-voters just stay as-is. Anyone who abstains would also need to vote as abstaining to make sure turnout stays high. I'm just riffing here, getting deep into the weeds of how a potential system could work.

[st3v3r]

What if we don't think we could make an unbiased solution? What if the best solution is to simply get everyone to vote?

[kidcoach]

We won't know until we try. People are afraid of this option because they will be called elitist (see parent commenter), but the 'elites' would not be the ones a good solution would favor. If it fails then we fall back to where we are now.

[st3v3r]

"but the 'elites' would not be the ones a good solution would favor"

Depends on who gets to define what a good solution is. Given that our country has a huge history of, and still has a problem with suppressing and disenfranchising minorities and women, I am not willing to experiment with anything that's not designed to expand the vote to as many people as possible.