Why am I required to pass a written test, a field test and a medical examination in order to be allowed to drive, but in order to vote the only requirement I should satisfy is being able to breathe?
Seriously. I could be drunk or high while getting in that booth and helping decide who’s going to run the country. Nobody cares. I could be mentally unstable, illiterate or with an IQ of a shoe. I could be an evil overlord. I bet if Lord Vader would show up at the polling station, they’d hand him a card if the photo in his passport would match his breathing mask. Hell, he’d probably be in the run.
The very least you should be required to know before voting is where is your guy positioned in the political spectrum. Wait, let me make this easy. Where does he/she says they’re positioned. Plus maybe their main political ideas on three major topics, like the economy, the social services and the external affairs. People that vote for a party candidate just because it’s a family/tribe/neighbourhood tradition should be turned back from the door. People that vote for that selfsame candidate just because they like their hair should be kicked to the curb – and never allowed to vote again.
And while I’m at it: electronic vote. We wants it. And don’t give me that online security crap either; if investment funds trust a secured Internet connection with millions of dollars’ worth of transaction each and every day, you should be able to get me a secure way to send you 1024 bits of info every four years or so. It even ties up nicely with my earlier proposal; you can just make a nice online questionnaire as a prerequisite to voting.
Make voting easy and make it count. Maybe then politics will stop being such a dirty word.