Are there any nations in the world that have intelligence testing to qualify voters?

bluestateguy

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Thu Jan-17-08 08:26 AM
Original message

Are there any nations in the world that have intelligence testing to qualify voters?

Are there any nations that have a certain intelligence or political knowledge requirement to be considered a qualified voter?

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taterguy

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Thu Jan-17-08 08:43 AM
Response to Original message

1. We used to. It was an excuse to disenfranchise threats to authority

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distantearlywarning

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Thu Jan-17-08 08:49 AM
Response to Original message

2. The US did.

It was used to keep African-Americans and other "undesirable" groups from voting.

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Rosemary2205

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Thu Jan-17-08 08:50 AM
Response to Original message

3. Some do have "wealth tests"

Some countries just flat out only allow voting by the wealthy - if they allow voting at all. Even in the US of A the poor have much harder time voting. Between polling places being difficult for people with no car to reach, poll workers and voting supplies tightly rationed in poor areas to make voting take an excessively long time, and poor workers who juggle multiple jobs being unable to take HOURS off to go vote without the threat of being fired -

Consider the poor are less educated and sometimes SOMETIMES less educatable - then we have a defacto "intelligence" test of our own ---- though I don't know if Paris Hilton votes or not. :)

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H2O Man

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Thu Jan-17-08 08:55 AM
Response to Original message

4. A bad idea.

Intelligence is not a measure of goodness, or the ability to know right from wrong.

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hobbit709

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Thu Jan-17-08 08:55 AM
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5. We used to have poll taxes and landowner requirements

and if you were an illiterate black person, you couldn't read and fill out the forms. But no actual "intelligence" test as such. I think the requirement should be that you can at at least count past 10 with your shoes on-that would eliminate most of the freeper types right there.

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ladjf

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Thu Jan-17-08 12:27 PM
Response to Original message

6. How about intelligence test for Presidents? That could have

saved us a lot of trouble in 2000 and 2004.

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hobbit709

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Thu Jan-17-08 04:27 PM
Response to Reply #6

7. I remember a poster I once saw

"ITS A KNOWN FACT THAT PEOPLE CAN LIVE WITHOUT

AIR---FOR MINUTES

WATER---FOR DAYS

FOOD---FOR WEEKS

BRAINS----FOR YEARS."

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onenote

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Thu Jan-17-08 04:32 PM
Response to Original message

8. i sure as hell hope you aren't suggesting it would be a good thing.

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