Although this approach still has a view problems left unanswered. Namely what do you propose should be included in such a test? People will have different interests and motivations for wanting to take part in an election. I have personally met some people who were extremely informed in the areas which directly interacted with their voting motivations, yet when it came to general politics knowledge they left a lot to be desired.
One person in particular is majoring in Anthropology and doing their minor in development studies. In both these fields they are quite a force to be reckoned with, however Politics is something they struggle with. If such a test was implemented, they may end up being ineligible to vote.
This person I mention is educated, simply not in the way which you deem as being sufficient to vote.

Above all, basic political knowledge: What are we even voting for? What will be the outcome of my voting - does it decide on who has how many parliamentary seats or who will lead our country? What's the difference between this and that political function?

Right after that knowledge of the programme of each party. How are you supposed to vote for or against someone if you don't even know what they are working towards?

And then there should be questions about the procedure of voting, because someone who doesn't even know how many X they have to make (or how to make them, for example when working with voting machines) is definitely not qualified to try.

I'm not talking about highly academical tests here, it's just about checking whether someone even has the minimum knowledge to make a qualified decision instead of voting based on what others said/who looks the best/what they have always been voting for.

But that is exactly why I think such a test would be beneficial. Who cares how much they are educated in other fields? If they don't know anything about politics, why would you think that they are fit to make a qualified decision on who to vote for?

If I could choose between a simple woodworker, who took the time to inform himself about the various party programmes and the actual procedure he's voting in, and a Nobel Prize laureate rocket scientist who doesn't even know whether he's voting for parliamentary seats or the formation of government - I would definitely prefer the woodworker to decide on the future of my country.

He might not have the same priorities as I have, and is probably voting for a different party than myself, but at least he would make his decision based on well informed facts instead of dangerous sciolism.

If there was a test beforehand, the rocket scientists might not pass (or, another benefit of a test, he would prepare and actually learn about what he's voting on, because he wouldn't want to fail), while the woodworker would.

Only the one who's voting based on facts would be able to, while those who vote "because he's got a nice smile" or "because I don't like the other party" or "I've always voted for them" would have no chance to do so, unless they take the time learn the facts - and then they might actually think twice before voting for someone they just realised is going against their very beliefs.

The first question seems a little bit too personal to be included in a test. Indeed for reasons such as that taking exit polls was made illegal in New Zealand. So maybe it could be applicable in other countries but it conflicts with NZ culture too strongly for it to work here.

The second question, I can somewhat agree with. I am still uneasy with the idea of testing people, to get their say. However if we HAD to do it, I wouldn't mind that being one of the questions.

The third one, I do not see as being particularly relevant. It seems more of an elitist question.

:sweat: This would prevent me from being able to vote. As I have a few key policy areas which I am interested in. Outside of these, I do not take the time to see what the stance of each party is. Possibly it is different outside of New Zealand, but here it is quite common for people to watch specific portfolios. Or in some cases even more specific issues.

Do you know what Development studies and Anthropology even are? :o
http://pep.massey.ac.nz/massey/depar...udies_home.cfm
http://sscs.massey.ac.nz/ugsocant.htm
Actually, now that I think about it how could knowledge in these fields help a person decide their vote. That's just madness!

That's not what I meant with that question. What I was talking about was knowledge about whether you're voting for regional/national/international interests. I cringe whenever I hear people talk about how this or that party will help local farmers increase their income - when in fact the election was about issues of the European Union... and when you tell them, they look at you in astonishment, since they really didn't know what this election was all about.

What's elitist about knowing what the one who's elected will be able/unable to do? Every position has different requirements, so it does make a difference whether I vote a highly educated crank into a position where he's supposed to represent my country to the outside world (probably a bad idea) or into a position where he's only supposed to make important decisions for our future (probably much of a better idea).

I'm not sure about New Zealand, but at least over here I would say, yes, with that setup you're not exactly someone I would want to decide on the future of my country.

I find it extremely dangerous to vote for someone because one or two small parts of their programme meet you taste - yet you don't even realise that you just voted someone into a key position who's working towards genocide.

And if they were also studying political history and leadership for dummies - if they don't even know the basics of what the election is all about and what each party stands for, they are not fit for voting. If they don't know the basics, they can have all the theoretical knowledge about how society works, but they would still not have anything to apply that knowledge to.

I am quite curious as to how you separate those interests from each other. To be fair we will go with the example which you have chosen to use, namely whether or not it will help local farmers increase their incomes. Could you explain more why such a view would be detrimental to a persons voting ability? As this question is starting to slip into the realm of elitism as well. Although this is not unexpected as I consider the whole notion of testing people on whether they are 'qualified' to vote as being quite elitist. As the whole process of making a test, whatever you happen to put in said test is asserting that, this information and understanding trumps all overs. No matter how many times I have thought about it, warning bells go off. As what exactly does such an approach sound like? I can readily come up with two different but similar situations which share a lot in common with it and living in a post colonial country both are relevant to whether or not we implemented such a system here.

Firstly I turn to the field of development studies, in this aspect specifically the relationship between the academics/intellectuals of the 'developed' world and the communities of the 'developing' world. Initially development policies were created almost exclusively by Western Academics, yet this was by and large an unsuccessful approach. Quite simply because understanding the political processes which happen in government does not equate to knowing what the people want and need.

Here is a nicer example of where that went wrong.
Which is why I previously chose to use the example of the person who knows their community quite well, but are somewhat lacking when it comes to technical political details. Which in New Zealand elections is less of a problem as we have political parties such as the Aotearoa Green party which focusses quite strongly on community work. Another problem and as I mentioned is similar to the one I just covered has been relationships with tribal/small scale peoples.

Being a post colonial country as I previously mentioned (although some would argue we are still in the colonial stage), relationships between the Crown and the Maori are of great importance. Indeed like many other peoples who have suffered from ethnocide and forced assimilation, they too are overrepresented on negative statistics. There have been numerous studies and research which has demonstrated that it is due to ethnocide and forced assimilation that they predominantly occupy such a position in society.

I would argue that as Pakeha culture enjoys a hegemonic position over the State and through that how our government operates, any attempt to make a mandatory test on how our government operates would be little more than a return to the darker days of New Zealand's history. How ironic it would be, that just when we begin to understand the importance that a persons culture and political identity play in their well being, we would take steps to effectively silence an already marginalized people.

I love how you are able to call what I base my vote on as being small, without actually knowing what it is I base said vote on.


Edit: To sum up my argument as I think this post looks a little unclear, I oppose testing as a means of determining whether or not a person can vote as it falsely pushes the idea that certain knowledge in regards to the running of society as being more important than other areas. Through use of referring to both the 'developing' world and New Zealand's colonial history I attempted to highlight issues of cultural bias where simply having a good understanding of politics did not in fact produce policies which were capable of meeting the needs of the people in question. In New Zealand this is still the case, as recent research published in 2006 demonstrated that our education system is still too culturally biased and that this is resulting in Maori underachieving as a result. As education is quite fundamental to your proposal of implementing a testing system, I would argue that such an approach would only create an even more biased system and further the hegemonic position of Pakeha culture in society.

What I have mentioned about our post colonial situation in Aotearoa, New Zealand is but an extremely brief introduction. The complexities involved in attempting to take but this one element of New Zealand society into account in any political test would be challenging enough as it is. Without also taking into consideration the highly region specific issues, which is why I included the example of a conversation I had with someone from an NGO. As being highly schooled in politics does not equate to knowing what the situation is like in the community.

That's quite simple. Parties have different programmes based on the scope - those who might be in favour of certain topics on a national scope can have totally different key subjects when it comes to the European Union.

(Unless you take the last election, that was misused to make national politics, but that's a different topic.)

So not even knowing what you're voting for means you might elect someone who's not representing your interests, and isn't that what elections are all about? Voting for the one you think is acting in your interests?

Sorry, but you tend to forget the key sentence I used above - we're not talking about academical tests, we're talking about testing whether people know the basics, whether people know what they are even voting on and how you even do so.

Does it represent the will of people if their vote goes to the wrong person because they don't know how to check the right field? Does it represent the greater good if people vote for a politician because "he looks so nice" without even knowing what he stands for? Does it benefit someone to not vote for a party, just because they didn't even know this party is the one who's representing him best?

No, instead of making sure people are well informed we have voters that shrug when you ask them what this election is all about, and that are the source of political stagnation in this country - because they tell you they don't like how this party is handling things, but "I always voted for them, so I'll just vote them again".

Anyway, since the next few paragraphs of your post are dealing with elitist academical questions that would exclude the common people - and this is not what I was talking about, which you find amusing to keep ignoring - I'll skip those. Knowing what the party you vote for has in their programme is not "technical political details", it's the basic knowledge everybody needs to make a decision unless they want to vote based on good looks or old habits.

May I call that a strawman? You feel the need to use all high and mighty nomenclature, yet at the same time you're pretending you don't know the difference between hard facts and an exaggerated example?

What I was going at was that if you don't know the whole programme, you are bound to miss topics that might go against everything you believe in. Just because a party agrees with you on a couple of topics doesn't mean it's the right party for you to vote on.

But then again, maybe New Zealands politics is as simple as "this party is for community work and that one is only about capitalist bullocks" - it's not that easy over here, and if you don't have the will to inform yourself about the different goals of each party you are bound to vote for the wrong one.

And yet again you deliberately miss the point and ignore all I've said before. Asserting that I am talking about knowledge that's "elitist" and "academical" of course does make you blind to the fact that, no matter how much knowledge you have about society and its internal workings - you won't be able to apply that knowledge if you don't even feel the necessity to inform yourself about where to make your cross in order to vote for the party you think will benefit society the most.

You can know about the best course for your country all you want, if you don't know which party is going for that course your vote is moot and most probably going to the party that's working against your will.

The rest of your post is more posh talk about how I'm demanding elitists test, so I'll just stop here.

@Nalah Sin-
Two quick questions then, as this could ultimately be where I am losing you. Firstly could you explain what you mean by political programme? As I had up to this point assumed it meant the parties stance on every issue. Which is not something I consider to be overly important when it comes to placing a vote.

Secondly what did you mean when you described political processes as being important knowledge? Because as a politics major, I find this to be quite an ask of someone outside the field to mention. There are a great many political processes which happen at all levels.

Although if it was required that a person simply has a working knowledge of the electoral system and can identify a few key policies then I would be more inclined to agree. It should also be noted that I strongly endorse compulsory introduction of civics duty classes teaching introductory knowledge about such things as our electoral system, the Treaty of Waitangi and its implications.

Fiuh - I think now you managed to close the gap between the two of us. :D
(And you just made me feel a bit stupid, for I began to think that you where just pretending to misunderstand what I'm saying - I'm sorry for that! May I use language barriers for an excuse? ;))

Question 1: I'm not sure how it's handle in other countries, but over here the programme is a booklet of about 15-40 (depends on the party) pages containing all the topics they are considering working on. It's not a stance on everything, but it's still rather complicated, since the different topics don't exactly follow a common line. A party might be considering banning cars from the city, while at the same time working on income taxes and also trying to find a solution to discrepancies between foreigners and natives.

Of course questions about the programme should never be anything like "What is the percentage of homeless that party XY wants to reduce and by what date?" but more like "Which party is considering taking on the homeless problem?".

Question 2: Really just basic knowledge. For example, I find it extremely disturbing that people don't know the difference between a federal chancellor and a federal president. It's basic knowledge, in school it's the first thing you learn in political education, yet there are lots of people out there who don't know the difference. And since both have vastly different requirements, I consider it really important.

Another bit of information people don't seem to know (based on the votes we have to count at the end of the election) is whether you can vote for a party, yet vote for a specific person to fill the position that's from a totally different party.

Now that you mention compulsory classes (which we already have - but sadly at an age at which you're not yet even allowed to vote) - I guess those would be a toned-down alternative to tests. Of course those who are not interested at all would just sit it out, but I'm sure there are lots of people who would listen and at least take a bit of this into the election if the classes were close enough to that date. That would have less of an "you're not fit to vote" tone to it, while it would probably still improve the overall quality of people's votes.

While some younger people are more educated and politically involved, a lot of people who are old enough to vote don't. Whether or not it's because they don't know enough about politics, can't make up their mind, or just don't want to. And the only reason that the current voting age is 18 and not 21 is because people argued that if 18 year olds are allowed to join the army and fight for their country they should be able to vote as well. I really don't think it will make that much of an impact if you lowered the voting age. (Although some people seem to think doing so will give democrats an advantage because most young people are democratic and older people are republicans according to the most recent poll.) I think what we should focus on more is getting people already allowed to vote to actually do so.

@Nalah Sin-
Ok I had seriously misunderstood what you were meaning by your questions. Instead of programme we typically mention what a party is campaigning on. As for political processes we tend to simply call that the electoral system.

Although speaking of which we are going to have a referendum on it in the upcoming years. Haha if there is one topic which could change my mind on testing for the right to vote, this is it. I am sadly expecting a knee jerk reaction to our current system (MMP, which I love). It is so sad that it could be voted away based on misinformation and misunderstandings. Haha although supporting the Green party, I get fronted with a lot of misunderstandings. It is not helped when popular "intellectuals" continuously tell the public that the green party are the communist monster hiding under your bed.

I would strongly hope that compulsory education would help increase the general understanding of the public.

I would have agreed with you that the voting age should be lowered if I were 16.
However I am now 20, so I would have to say no.

The reason why I the voting age should not be changed from 18 to 16 is because people in high school are - for the vast majority - uninterested in politics. They have school, they have other interests like enjoying themselves. If you were to go out and check how many 16-year-olds are interested in voting and actually know what they are voting for (aka, what the parties actually offer) chances are not many of them would know.

18-year-olds on the other hand have more or less the same problem, but they are now adults and in that way they look a lot more to their future - getting a job, perhaps deciding on going to University - and in that way I personally believe they are 'more mature' than a 16-year-old who usually concentrated on getting through the year, or worrying about their University entrance exam.

Of course all of this also depends on what country you are in. In Australia voting is compulsory with monetary fines applied if you do not vote. As such I would definitely not agree with a reduction in age as most 16-year-olds would just go for the donkey vote.

For America where it is not compulsory, perhaps lowering the voting age is more viable because you would assume only those interested in the wide community and the future and thus what each party has to offer them would vote.

i think the teenagers should have some sort of short test to see whether they have enough knowledge to vote

I'll add a twist to this debate. I think we should either lower the LOCAL election age limit, or raise the NATIONAL age limit.

The reason is that people who want to get into politics at a younger age can start by learning about the process more locally. Then, once they have learned from the local elections, they can step up in the election cycle with experiance. Heck, I'd be for BOTH lowering the local and raising the National.

I'm not for lowering the whole thing, though.

I don't care. When I was 18 It was time to vote. I never registered. Still am not. I could care less about politics.

I think it should be seventeen, because it is the age of consent.