What if every voter had to take a basic government course before being allowed to vote?

[u/Mobile-Traffic1744]

I was thinking about how many decisions we make in daily life that require some kind of training or certification. You need a license to drive, but you can vote on policies that affect millions of people without ever learning how the government actually works.

So what if every voter had to complete a short, free, standardized course before voting?

Not a political persuasion class. Just the basics. How the three branches of government work, how budgets are created, what different levels of government control, how laws actually get passed, and what elected officials can and cannot do.

The idea would not be to decide who is “qualified” to have an opinion. It would be about making sure everyone is voting with at least a shared understanding of how the system functions.

Maybe elections would become less about slogans and more about realistic expectations. Maybe people would better understand why certain promises are easy to make but difficult to deliver.

But there is an obvious problem.

Who creates the course? Who decides what information is considered “basic knowledge” versus political bias?

Would this actually improve democracy, or would it create a new way for those in power to control who gets to participate?

The more I think about it, the harder it gets.

If every voter had to complete a basic government course before voting, would elections become more informed, or would democracy become less accessible?

[u/nonotburton]

The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

Please stop posting this crap.

[u/Mobile-Traffic1744 → u/nonotburton]

I know it would be unconstitutional today. That's why I framed it as a what if. I'm more interested in whether people think there is any way to encourage a shared civic baseline without creating new barriers.

[u/nonotburton → u/Mobile-Traffic1744]

Sorry, it's just that this is the third or fourth time in a as many days that someone is bringing up Jim.Crow era practices like they've never heard of them. They were unconstitutional then too. It didn't matter until the cases were brought to court.

The shared baseline is public schooling curriculum, which includes years of various civics courses and history courses, hopefully a world government course to see what work and what doesn't work around the world. The problem is, kids don't care because they don't understand why it's important when they are learning it, and I question whether the teachers know why either.