I’m too dumb to vote
There’s an amusing online test at www.dontvote.org, that tells you whether your political knowledge is sufficient enough to cast a ballot. The test shows you a series of pictures, and you are to identify the person in the picture (one question), and their occupation (another question). They threw in some non-political players to trip people up.
I didn’t flunk the test, but let’s say my score was “below average” on the general academic scale.
My first thought was, “What a stupid test! How could it possibly matter whether I can pick political leaders and actors out of a police lineup?” There is some truth in that. I certainly know who Nancy Pelosi, Bill Frist, Harry Reid, etc. are, but I didn’t know what they look like.
Then I thought, how ironic is it that I can’t identify influential members of my own party by sight (except John Kerry, who as of late is the man, and a couple others), but I know what a number of the opposition party look like. Mostly, it’s because the Dems just don’t get a lot of love from the news media these days.
What may be the most amusing thing about this test, however, is the seriousness with which dontvote.org’s mission statement is written. It seems as though they really believe that identifying politicians by sight is the most accurate barometer of an informed citizen, which is patently ludicrous.
I will know what I’m doing on November 7th. For those of you who don’t, vote Democrat! :-)
February 16th, 2007 at 10:32 am
It also fails to adjust for country so that UK citizens are “too dumb to vote” because they don’t know the ins and outs of US politics. It’s a wee bit more complex than that, Jim.
March 9th, 2007 at 11:15 pm
The test told me that i cannot vote because i do not watch Television. I listen to talk radio 50 hours a week and i can recognize Harry Ried or Mitt Romney by voice. Damn if i know what they look like until Matt Drudge features them.