The machine produces a physical paper record you can read, it doesn't matter what software it's running if you can verify your vote is accurate.

Even if you assumed the test successfully filtered out an educated voterbase, it would take all but five seconds for X party to cheat their exams, kind of like the "grandfather law" which essentially bypassed jim crow era literacy tests for everyone who was white.

I certainly trust The Party That's In Charge At Any Given Time to subjectively come up with the criteria that objectively determines a voter's ignorance level

I can help! So the first step is to be white, and then the second step is to do whatever you think seems right

Idunno I thought the burning coal one was kinda funny

Yes they should. But at the same time completely ignorant people should not.

Jesus. You're literally arguing for removing franchise from the majority of citizens. If they primarily reside in an area and will be affected by the policies, they should be able to vote on them, whether or not they're ignorant.

The problem is that you can very, very quickly arrive at the conclusion that if someone just had enough knowledge, they'd vote like me, and strip the vote from everyone that doesn't agree with you. Except that people can, and do, have different beliefs, even with the same knowledge.

When they gained voting rights none of them knew how to read well so the racist made a law saying you have to pass a reading test or some shit so they couldn’t vote.

Not correct. Literacy tests weren't testing actual reading ability and comprehension; they were explicitly intended to deny the right to vote. White people would be passed because they had grandparents that had been permitted to vote, and literally got grandfathered in. Non-white people would be given tests written in, for instance, latin. So even if they could read, the odds were very poor that they'd be able to read the language the test was in. Or they would be given tests that had very ambiguous questions, and any way they answered could be considered 'wrong'.

Computerized voting will always be a mistake.

disagrees in brazilian voting machine noises

Yeah it sounds fun unless you have any awareness of how this actually worked out when it was used in the past. Fully not okay.

Can you also verify that the vote it presents to be counted? Can you verify the counting? For every way to verify computerized voting, there are a dozen ways to compromise it.

You mean tests that were designed to ensure that only "the right people" were able to pass them. As well as a grandfather clause that exempted all of those right people (in modern times there would likely be a voter roll purge that would somehow lose most liberal voters while miraculously keeping all of the conservative ones).

The white guy test: spell dog.

The black guy test: prove the Riemann Hypothesis.

See the problem yet?

Thanks, i also think it's a great idea to force people to be involved in the processes that control their lives.

Being good at your little task, and in this case we’re talking about degrees so it’s just passing a couple courses and schmoozing your boss afterward, does not make you intelligent. I know some profoundly stupid people who barely scrape by, many by just overworking themselves because they lack the ability to grow and learn new, better ways to do things on their own.

The bar for “intelligent” is on the fucking floor, apparently.

Even if you assumed the test successfully filtered out an educated voterbase

"Educated" is already doing some heavy lifting. What education are you demanding voters possess?

Because I've had an earful about "Marxist Professors corrupting our youth!" for my entire life. I doubt conservatives would consider any kind of liberal exam a legitimate test of voting aptitude.

Meanwhile, there's enough jingoism and nationalism in our education system already, such that I could see an exam question "Which religious extremist sect was responsible for 9/11? Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists" or "Is an individual with XY chromosomes a man or a woman?" that's a bit... loaded? Especially when administered right before a national election.

Sure, keep believing that "truly intelligent" people are immune to fascism. There's no way that will ever come back to bite you!

They do hand-counts when there's an irregularity.

Hand count consists of 1 delegate from each party tallying every single ballet. If they disagree on a ballet (this is less common if a computer prints the ballet), an official agreed on by both parties determines what the voter intended.

The voting system is quite good by international standards, the fix in American "democracy" comes in way before all of this.

And that's what makes you a tyrant.

This is always shot down because eventually someone in control will change the test to introduce bias in their favor.

But, what if: Make there be one concrete, completely unchangeable rule. The test must be a math question.

No hypothetical story to make the question 'relevant' (E.g. Bob and Alice each have x and y ... calculate z). Just raw math.

There is no biasing a math question.

Perhaps an integral or differential equation with randomly chosen constants.

Yeah, it doesn't filter for civic education.

Yeah, people could prepare and/or give out targeted explainers for the type of question after first voting/mail-in voting day.

Yeah, it will still let some shitty people vote and deny some good people from voting.

But there is no biasing a math question.

Probably will still have more problems in practice. Big ones being making an 'unchangeable' rule, or it being made ineffective by changing the question to something like simple addition.

Not necessarily saying this should be done or is a good idea. Just putting the thought out there.

It's not all lazy and slow-witted voters, the media presents the news as if we all had a degree in government. That's apparently what they've put in as a filter but it only allows the worst of the bunch to fly by the seat of their pants, getting their vote from impressions and gut feelings.