Should anyone be allowed to vote?

Voting is, contrary to popular opinion, an awesome tool. Yes, the electoral college is what elects the president in the end, but it YOUR votes are what determine electoral votes.

I think voting is a very strong expression of the freedom we take as our birthright from the United States. Though we don't make the decisions directly, and it is an imperfect system, it's much more than many other countries, now or in the past, have allowed their citizens (some nations don't even recognize the term "citizen" and look more at their residents as property).

But should just anyone be given this magnificent power? In the United States it isn't hard to get the right to vote, all you have to do is be a citizen and survive 18 years. Now, many people would say living that long would endow a certain wisdom on a person but I say, uh-uh.

This is what I say:
Send information, written by both supporters and detractors of every (yes every) presidential candidate (at least) to the home of every registered voter.
Equip every voting booth with a small computer. Have the computer take the individual's SSN (to make sure each person only votes once) and their choice of presidential candidate. Then have the computer administer a short test based on the issues of their chosen candidate.

Would you want someone who hasn't even taken a driving test to share the road with you? Well, I certainly wouldn't want my vote negated (or supported, for that matter) by someone who knew nothing of politics.

Right off the bat you eliminate people who are illiterate, at the very least--which of course falls upon those who are poor, minorities, or have reading disabilities. I suppose you might offer an alternate oral exam. Now you're only eliminating non-English speakers at a minimum--there's no way you can examining in the language most familiar to every American voter. You may think this is a good thing--but there's a lot of American citizens who disagree with you.

Now beyond the fact that this test will disproportionally disqualify the poor, uneducated, and minorities, the test itself must be politically discriminatory. You say the test will examine based on political issues--who decides what issues are important? There is only one valid answer in a democracy--and that is the voter. We can't have a test like this.

So for now you're going to have to get used to the idea of uninformed voters whom you can't stand. There's no way around it in a democracy. And take a clue--past proponents of poll taxes and literacy tests have been not very thinly-veiled racists--taxes and tests that have since been struck down.