[nickalaso]

I think the real way to make politics less crazy is to create barriers to voting, actually.

The real problem with our politics is that the more informed members of the populace make up their minds early on, leaving the lowest common denominator voters as the only votes left to be swayed. Which causes our political cycle to be driven by abject stupidity rather than useful information and policy discussion.

Imagine how much better things could become if we could find some fair, reasonable way to create a truly representative voting base that were required to be actually quantitatively informed on policy and policy consequences.

[maxerickson]

I'm not sure the voters that decide early are really doing it based on being 'more informed'.

[Talanes]

Their claim wasn't that early deciding voters are more informed, but that more informed voters decide earlier.

IE: That more informed voters are a subset of the population of early deciding voters.

The counterpoint would be informed voters who make late decisions, not low-information voters who decide early.

[maxerickson]

My counterpoint is that early informed voters aren't any meaningful percentage of voters!

[jimmygrapes]

Another way to put it might be that they are more secure in what they wish to see from a policy standpoint, and the personality-based sideshow of a campaign is usually irrelevant to that. Assuming of course that any given candidate is upfront about their platform and sticks to it.

[pavel_lishin]

Perhaps some sort of simple literacy test, such as this?

https://www.ferris.edu/HTMLS/news/jimcrow/question/2012/pdfs...

( from https://allthatsinteresting.com/voting-literacy-test )

edit: god I hope people realize I'm being facetious

[temp8964]

What if there is a racial difference in the test score?

[crmrc114]

The irony is that I think you would love Plato's republic. I think everyone is seeing shades of racism hence the downvotes.

Nonetheless your critique of democracy with universal suffrage is not new and has some valid points.

I think the problem is an implementation, those that want power create rules- rules that will prevent marginalized communities from being represented.

[Terr_]

I think that would backfire, since the most successful forms of stupidity are also the most compelling and enervating. :P

Also, voting isn't a privilege, it's a bare-minimum consolation-prize for the power the government wields over you. It would be immoral to create barriers.

[dragonwriter]

The problem with your theory is that excluding people from voting doesn’t exclude them from being manipulatable political footsoldiers, it just removes a peaceful outlet for their political dissatisfactions and heightens their sense of alienation.

[MisterBastahrd]

It would require the abolition of political parties, at least in the US.