The way we vote has a way of favoring uninformed voting. First-past-the-pole voting is quickly and probably always reducible to a two-party system. People can get as informed as they want, but in the end it will matter if they make the "right" choice, which is to say between the two parties. It's what some political theorists have taken to calling a forced-choice---kind of like "your money or your life," where of course you have a choice, but only one of them is the right one. You can't completely blame them either; voting that way is the only way to get something resembling a majority in the system as it is. It doesn't have to be that way though.

Instant Runoff Voting or some condorcet method would go a long way to making it possible for an informed electorate to think for itself, and not how their neighbor or the mainstream-media tell them to think. Why should opinion polls matter, when in the voting booth its your opinion that counts? I mean, what kind of fucking so-called democracy do we live in when "can't win" is a good reason to vote for someone? The first-past-the-pole voting system means that people informed votes are thrown away if not made "correctly." There is nothing democratic about this in the first place.

Recently, Democracy seems to be valued more in practice than it is in principal. I believe in this sentiment despite recent electoral debacles. The right to vote is more substantial when people know what they are voting for. I agree that there is a serious case to be made as to the competency of the voting public.

As a student at The University of Texas at Austin, I have seen many of my peers rally around various campaigns from Hillary, to Barrack, and even to Ron Paul. However, I highly doubt that many of these people are aware of underlying issues that differentiate the various platforms. My general impression is that voting and political activism is the "hip" thing to be associated with. It is no doubt that an ill informed youth voter base will only breed an equally ill informed general public.

Rick Shenkman attributes the ignorance of the American Electorate to stereotypes and biases. One item I missed was outright fear.

Freightened people also stop thinking and ask only that someone promises to "keep them safe". To the extent our current government has exploited that fear for hte past seven years, they have contributed to an electorate that, even if it were capable of rasoned thought, refuses to do so, just "to be kept safe".

John McCain is exploiting that against Barak Obama as we read these comments right now.

Populism has become, not surprisingly, quite popular, but I tend to agree more with the basic assertions made my Shenkman. I have more than one friend with an advanced degree who has no idea what’s going on in the world and has minimal interest to boot (one actually did not know who this Scott Mclellan character was). While the civics test also makes me queasy, something must be done to make Americans take their obligations as citizens seriously. In every aspect of our society, we pay a premium to belong to groups, societies or clubs—except the most important one, the nation. An elementary test at 18 to access the electoral priveldges of citizenship may not be a bad idea, or at least some kind of civics test folded into the high school curriculum that would be necessary to get a diploma.

As a final testament to how dumb we are, the writer himself seems rather ignorant. Yes, a good proportion of Americans did in fact oppose the Iraq war, but no where near a majority. And in the final analysis, GW Bush won in 2004, after everything about his administrations avarice and mendacity was already common knowledge (at least to those who bothered reading the daily paper). Finally, voting Democratic because its somewhat less damaging than voting Republican is one thing. But voting Democratic because you “approve of how they want to use their power” is an unforgiveable crime of ignorance. Democratics have promoted and enabled the Republicans in every major step—FISA, telecom immunity, the war of course, and the Patridiot Act, etc. ad nauseum. If you don’t know that and you’re working for Salon, then we have a serious problem.

The American electorate scares me. But a large part of the fault may lie with the idiot box (television), with its sound bites, and the secret behind our "labor productivity" stats -- i.e., those who have a job are working for two, or three, and so do not have TIME for anything more than a sound bite or two. And formation of an opinion is a very subtle, reactionary, psychological thing. Fight or flight, etc. So, CEOs, keep those noses to the grind stone, make sure all your employees put in 70 hours or more per week, and then maybe you can get elected those who would cut your taxes some more. After all, you would not want to pay your way; would you?

I think one more argument for a civics test is that we Americans simply place no value on our rights because they're given to us for "free." If the stakes were raised and there was a bit of work involved - i.e. a civics test - then maybe we would place more value on the right to vote. After all, look at all the losers who don't even bother to vote in the first place - could there be a better example of how little we value this right?

I agree. I read Bayard's piece and came away convinced that Shenkman's ideas were much stronger than Bayard's flaccid, by-the-numbers critique of them.

The people choose the government leaders not because they're supposed to know anything in particular, but because it is believed they ought to have a voice. The guy who wrote this book maybe made a whopper of a category mistake in thinking political autonomy was supposedly based on some notion of mass wisdom. Ditto juries.