Political knowledge quiz

You Should Be Allowed to Vote

You got 15/15 questions correct. Generally speaking, you're very well informed. If you vote this election, you'll know exactly who (and what) you'll be voting for. You're likely to have strong opinions, and you have the facts to back them up.

Should You Be Allowed to Vote?

I feel a bit ambivalent about this quiz. On the one hand, I aced it, so hey, ego massage. And yeah, I do think it’s a citizen’s responsibility to actually know something about the issues. (Not that this quiz actually asks about any issues. But if you don’t know what the three branches of government are, that’s probably not the only hole in your knowledge.)

On the other hand, people who argue that others shouldn’t be “allowed” to vote are not friends of democracy. Back in the ’60s, Republicans in Arizona had an organized campaign (Operation Eagle Eye) going to suppress the black vote by having poll watchers hang out at stations in mostly-black districts asking endless complicated questions of voters, causing the lines to back up and many to give up and go home. Former Supreme Court justice William Rehnquist was one such poll watcher.

The year 2000 wasn’t that long ago. The company hired by the state of Florida to scrub illegitimate voters from the rolls was over-zealous and scrubbed several thousand legitimate voters as well, mostly black voters, in numbers easily large enough to have changed the outcome of the election.