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[-] mkwt@lemmy.world 242 points 2 months ago

What that actually looked like:

[-] SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 148 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

A perfectly designed test - ambiguous enough that anyone subjected to it can be failed.

I still don't know what #11 is "supposed" to be.

[-] 0ops@piefed.zip 41 points 2 months ago

I think it's supposed to say "Cross out the digit necessary", so one digit, in which case cross out the 1 because there's enough 0's that crossing out one 0 isn't enough.

It's 10 that has me confused. Is it asking for the last letter of the first word that starts with 'L' in that sentence? It doesn't actually specify.

[-] Passerby6497@lemmy.world 18 points 2 months ago

I would assume each question is independent of the others, so probably a T for 'last'

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[-] THB@lemmy.world 32 points 2 months ago

Can anyone explain #1 to me? What are you supposed to circle? It says "the number or the letter". There's 1 number and the entire sentence is literally letters...

It's like when the waiter asks "Soup or salad?" and you say "Yes".

[-] roguetrick@lemmy.world 28 points 2 months ago

Circle? It clearly says draw a line around whatever you decided wrongly to indicate. Lines don't curve and aren't boxes, so good luck.

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[-] davidgro@lemmy.world 17 points 2 months ago

And 13 is unclear if it's strictly 'more than' or 'more than or equal'

[-] doughless@lemmy.world 30 points 2 months ago

That's on purpose - white skin? it can be either one; otherwise both are wrong.

[-] BakerBagel@midwest.social 20 points 2 months ago

You actually weren't subjected to literacy tests "if your grandfather was eligible to vote", ie your grandfather was a white citizen.

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[-] taiyang@lemmy.world 10 points 2 months ago

You got enough answers but here's how you deny someone the right to vote: the question really means you need to make the number 1000000 exact as that is the number "below" the question. Not fewer, physically below.

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[-] TheFogan@programming.dev 98 points 2 months ago

Also worth pointing out, WHY the test is so bad... 1. obviously not even well educated people today can agree on the meaning of a good portion of the questions.

but the biggest thing is, not everyone had to take them... IE the key point intention was "if a parent or grandparent has ever voted, you can skip this test". which is such a blatant giving away that they don't care of an individuals knowledge, they aren't actually worried if they can read, they were just keeping first generation voters from voting... at a time when in particular a specific subset of american's were in position to be first generation voters.

[-] match@pawb.social 39 points 2 months ago

(black people, particularly)

[-] match@pawb.social 55 points 2 months ago

There are two more pages to this and it gets worse

[-] WalnutLum@lemmy.ml 25 points 2 months ago

Prove you're literate by solving lateral thinking word puzzles.

[-] AI_toothbrush@lemmy.zip 15 points 2 months ago

This is like the kryptonite of autistic people... and black voters whenever they had this...

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[-] abbiistabbii 200 points 2 months ago

If voting needed an exam, they would use that exam to stop certain demographics from voting. And no, I'm not talking about the ignorant.

[-] bestagon@lemmy.world 83 points 2 months ago

They used to do this and it turned out exactly how you describe. I would probably also add it’d incentivize politicians to dismantle educational institutions serving certain demographics

[-] apftwb@lemmy.world 39 points 2 months ago

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

[-] wetbeardhairs@lemmy.dbzer0.com 91 points 2 months ago

It is 100% used as a weapon to disenfranchise voters.

I do however believe that it should be used on CANDIDATES.

[-] TootSweet@lemmy.world 17 points 2 months ago

Who gets to design the test, though?

[-] callyral@pawb.social 35 points 2 months ago
[-] TeamAssimilation@infosec.pub 11 points 2 months ago

You have my vote, but only if you pass MY OWN candidate tester test.

[-] TheFogan@programming.dev 15 points 2 months ago

That is the one fear, especially considering... a now controlling amount of politicians can't accept basic facts... so we'd see questions like "is climate change real", "how old is the earth".

[-] WoodScientist@sh.itjust.works 11 points 2 months ago

The test will ask how old the Earth is. Any answer over 6000 years or so will be marked false.

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[-] DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social 76 points 2 months ago

Ironically illiterate take

[-] JackbyDev@programming.dev 57 points 2 months ago

Fuck no. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literacy_test

Between the 1850s and 1960s, literacy tests were used as an effective tool for disenfranchising African Americans in the Southern United States. Literacy tests were typically administered by white clerks who could pass or fail a person at their discretion based on race. Illiterate whites were often permitted to vote without taking these literacy tests because of grandfather clauses written into legislation.

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[-] eluvatar@programming.dev 54 points 2 months ago

Who determines the questions and answers? Now they are the ones determining who can vote and thus the people in control.

[-] roguetrick@lemmy.world 48 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Sure. Disenfranchise most people. That's a suitable hack to a
checks notes
stable, legitimate, and responsive government.

Even China would have more political legitimacy than such a system. It would collapse almost immediately.

If you ever want a good example of functionalist ideas leading to absolutely uncritical nonsense, here it is.

[-] Ptsf@lemmy.world 10 points 2 months ago

Not saying this is the correct route, but I do see the cultural decay, foreign influence, and complete lack of civic duty causing massive political failures in the US in real-time as we grow lazier, less interested, and more content. Any idea how we account for that in a reasonable fashion?

[-] roguetrick@lemmy.world 12 points 2 months ago

The problem is looking at it too functionally. You cannot fix it by "fixing" voting as if voting magically creates a functional government. It's a method to derive consensus. You cannot look at a system that is failing to produce consensus and then fix it by directly removing anything that increases consensus. That's insane.

You need to critically look at the entire system and identify what the problem is. In this case it's largely the abstraction layers. People now interact with their government through filters even greater than the old Hearst days. Information flows from media filters to the population and from the population to government through social media filters. And both of those filters have their own agendas. Of course nobody believes the resulting government is responsive or legitimate. It's not.

There are many potential solutions for civic engagement. But that largely means breaking down the very walls that powerful interests have created. There's no easy solution to it. Certainly not "let's make these stupid people unable to vote." A solution is much more radical and takes understanding both what you want to achieve and how the current system is preventing it.

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[-] ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net 43 points 2 months ago

Nah, the exams wouldn't be mandatory for everyone. You have a degree? Exempt. You graduated from one of the "certified" high schools (the ones in white neighborhoods but we don't call it that wink wink)? Exempt. Passed NRA shooting license exam? Exempt.

[-] muusemuuse@sh.itjust.works 43 points 2 months ago

This is a bad idea. You would just be creating another layer of gerrymandering.

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[-] Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world 37 points 2 months ago

They used to do that in the US during the Jim Crow era. It went predictably.

[-] Sunsofold@lemmings.world 34 points 2 months ago

Keep trying, Jay. One day you'll make a funny comic.

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[-] misteloct@lemmy.dbzer0.com 32 points 2 months ago

The exam:

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

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[-] chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com 29 points 2 months ago

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

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[-] ICastFist@programming.dev 26 points 2 months ago

Brazil had something like that in the early republic days, only literate people could vote. Needless to say, only the robber baron elites kept getting elected, also thanks to the significant amount of fraud that happened. "The election is won during the counting"

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[-] multifariace@lemmy.world 26 points 2 months ago

And the approved voters just happened to be from the 50 people who controlled the testing.

[-] bremen15@feddit.org 22 points 2 months ago

It's not working. We have relatively equal education in Germany, and we have plenty of intelligent, educated people voting far right.

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[-] frostedtrailblazer@lemmy.zip 21 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

If I recall correctly, Aristotle proposed something like only the educated being able to vote. I think if everyone was guaranteed free access to both a high school and college education, along with all food and living costs covered for anyone studying, then I could see having at least any associates level degree being an okay barrier of entry to voting.

However, such a thing would need to be protected by some unremovable barriers. For instance, education would need to continue receiving appropriate funding, food and other living costs such as renting a room would need to be covered even as the cost for these things change. People with disabilities would need to receive proper accommodations.

A caveat I’ll add is that there would need to be more community colleges built and much more funding for pre-K thru 12th grade as well.

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this post was submitted on 26 Jul 2025
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