What does universal suffrage achieve?
Suffrage – the right to vote
Universal Suffrage – when every member of a society has the right to vote
I’m not questioning the priceless humanist value of universal suffrage. In my mind there is no question that no one mentally competent taxpaying citizen of any country should have any more or less of a right to vote than anyone else. I do, however, wonder what influence it has on the outcomes of political elections.
I’m aware that suffrage only used to extend to land owners, leading to biased outcomes unfair to the lower classes. I wonder if universal suffrage isn’t a step too far though, as there are now people with no clue how to properly make a decision to vote who exercise their right to vote. I wonder if inadequate leaders have been and/or may be brought to power by an ignorant electorate when much more qualified leaders could have been and/or could be elected in their place by a more limited but more intelligent electorate.
Thomas Jefferson, one of the leading proponents of the secular and humanist values on which the United States were founded, had himself believed that education was vital in a country under universal suffrage. The people – all of them – needed to be free to choose their leaders, and so they needed to be educated in order to be able to choose their leaders properly. This is the reason why education is mandatory up to a certain grade.
It doesn’t seem to be enough though, with the likes of young-earth creationists actually having influence on politics. It’s when it gets to this point, the point where the uneducated opinions of a dozen two-thousand year-old camel farmers from Israel with no concept of modern politics in a country on a continent they didn’t even know existed can actually influence the outcome of a present day election that I find it difficult not to reconcile a cutback in suffrage.
Yes, I realize what the deep, negative humanistic implications of such a thing would be as it’s a violation of human rights, but I’m not suggesting people should be made unequal. Instead of having the right to vote, maybe people should have the right to attain the right to vote, through some form of education and/or examination that any viable voter of any status should be capable of attaining free of cost. This way, only people who are aware of political issues and their impacts on society will be able to vote, drastically reducing the potential of an inadequate leader being elected, without having and impact on human equality.
Am I on to something here or am I way off base? Thoughts, opinions, insights. Please.
July 7th, 2010 at 2:13 pm
America doesn’t even have universal suffrage. You have to be 18 to vote and even if your over 18 you can’t have any felonies. I do understand what your saying though… What most people don’t understand however is that their vote means absolutely nothing… The president isn’t elected by the people, he is elected by the electoral college. Ideally they vote with the people, but it is ridiculous to think that some of them, if not most of them, vote whichever way they like. The vote of the people does actually matter when it comes to smaller offices however…
July 7th, 2010 at 2:13 pm
Ill be honest, I dont think that your vote counts either way, especially if your middle class. I think the lower class holds most of the voting power, and the upper class holds all of the media coverage. So basically if the lower class started thinking for themselves everything should be in their favor. Social programs and such.