The exam:

Q. What is the secret password? A. Make America Great Again

It's a beautiful thought but at this point in time it would be used as a tool to exclude more than anything. So long as it is a voluntary service there would be a system in place to suppress certain groups.

Surely there are no examples in American history that voting eligibility exams were used to stop certain demographics from voting.

the main function of the contemporary media: to convey the message that even if you’re clever enough to have figured out that it’s all a cynical power game, the rest of America is a ridiculous pack of sheep.

This is the trap.

-David Graeber, The Democracy Project

Um fuck you? Being autistic doesn't mean we can't circle a letter or understand a sentence. Hell, this shit is incredibly literal minded and is easy as hell for us. Maybe you're the one with trouble.....

I also thought it a good idea at one point. I've since been convinced otherwise.

BUT, I do think we need some way for intolerant people to be stripped of the political power of the vote. I just can't figure out a way it could possibly be implemented without being weaponized against the marginalized. It may be better to implement it and attempt "constant vigilance" -- it seems like there are already necessary system that can be so weaponized that still do more good than harm.

Okay buddy cryptofash rhetoric

No it's not.

Ehh... I think it's fundamentally problematic. Why should only a subset of the adult population be allowed to vote on laws that affect everyone?

You're assuming that the grading system follows the "literal minded" definitions. On top of that, you better believe that they'll make you do the test in a loud and overstimulating environment.

You don't understand the test if you think it's all literal and "about circling the letter."

You would, in fact, get failed by the white eugenicists giving it to you the moment they figured out you were autistic.

One of the reasons they would know is that you think there are objectively correct answers to all of the questions and that most of them are not traps to allow a biased test giver to fail you and pass someone else that gave the same answer.

So... What's stopping the government in power from implementing systems that stop their political opponents holding those service positions?

Instructions unclear. Drew circle instead of line.

In most places, citizens below a certain age can't vote, yet laws affect them as well. By extension, one could probably argue that some people "don't know what's best for them" and experts/educated people are better suited to make the laws.

(However, creating such a test would obviously be impossible in practice, and would result in a conflict of interest, leading to discrimination, as muusemuuse points out.)

No I agree it absolutely would NOT work any time near this generation. It's not happening in our lifetimes, and if it does...that's probably bad. But conceptually, it is feasible...assuming like 50 other variables we are currently missing.

Yeah it's one of those ideas that work great if it's the way we had always done things for several generations...but it's not gonna work if we try to start it when anyone alive now is still...well...alive.

Humans in 2025 are...well, mostly horrible. So if we're working with this stock, it's never going to work. It's more of an idea that works really well AFTER the morons die from COVID/etc. because they refused to wear a mask unless that mask let them brutalize brown folks. Long-term, I think it's in idea we shouldn't bin (as a species). But it absolutely won't work TODAY.

I did my best. Do I get to vote?

Judging from the rest of this author's work, I highly doubt they thought about this any deeper than a puddle.

I read it as "1." Which underlines the point, I think