Probably we should just restrict the vote to the rich white leisure class- by Stossel's logic, they're the only ones with enough time and education to consider how political decisions affect their lives.

I think Stossel is right that it's bad when people cast uninformed votes. But the solution isn't to encourage people to stay home; the solution is encouraging people to become informed and then vote.

Your civic duty isn't merely to vote, but to cast an informed vote.

The email Karol referred to was from Michael Connery, author of Youth to Power. I am amazed that ABC is putting this on the air (but not too surprised that Stossel is doing it).

Four thoughts on the matter:

1) I suppose we could offer a simple test to voters: if you pass it, you should vote; if not, you should stay home. Or we could do it based on education level: if you've graduated from high school or college, you should vote; if not, you should stay home. Perhaps we could just use proxies for informed-ness: if you're a landowner, or if you've been a citizen for more than a couple generations, then you should vote; otherwise, we should leave it to the wiser people. On the other hand, perhaps it's better for us to abide by the central Constitutional principle that democracy works better when more people do it.

2) Oregon needs good youth-vote buzz, not bad: Oregon tied with Kansas in 2004 for the nation's biggest gap between older and younger voter turnout. We need to shrink that gap. We've seen bountiful voter suppression efforts in recent history; hopefully local media will do what can be done to help and cover the matter in a more positive way. In Oregon, folks at the Bus/Building Votes, the Student Vote Coaliton (including OSA and OSPIRG), and across the nation, including Headcount, Trick or Vote, New Era Colorado, ForwardMontana, Traction (North Carolina), Empower Alabama, Rock the Vote, USSA, Young Voter PAC, the League of Young Voters, and others (with the exception of big-brand Rock the Vote all pretty much scrappy, underfunded efforts) are working to boost youth participation...we need to spur those efforts, not undermine them.

3) Improved voter education is indeed vital. We need civic education in schools. We need support for voter education efforts like those provided by the League of Women Voters, the Classroom Law Project, and others. The answer isn't asking people to disengage from democracy; the answer is to ask people to engage more.

4) I actually think the poll test is a bad idea.

This assumes that younger voters actually care what middle aged asshats like John Stossel have to say. ;-)

Yes, I think it's a bad idea and horribly irresponsible for a major network to run this kind of story. Like Rulial wrote, the solution is absolutely to encourage voters to become informed, not stay home because they're not. And it's horrendously anti-democratic -indeed, anti-American- to suggest that citizens not vote. However, let's not give Stossel and his collaborators as much influence as they assume they have. Mockery is the most appropriate response.

Someone should ask Stossel a list of questions about the issues at stake and see how well informed HE is.

I have it on good authority that when the woman said there are "12" she was actually making an attempt at answering how many Supreme Court justices there are, not the number of senators. Granted, she's still wrong, but she's a lot closer to 9 than to 100. I think what Stossel should be focusing on is that we have uninformed people on the GOP ticket (cough...Palin..cough) and not that uninformed people might be casting a ballot. But, as many of the other comments have said, it is important to inform voters, not discourage them from going to the polls. If we educate and engage youth voters, then they will become lifetime informed voters. Besides, it's not as if the 'experienced' voters have done a great job over the last 8 years.

As proof that irony isn't dead, within hours of hearing of Stossel's piece, I also saw a copy of this email from my former U.S. Senator to my county election administrator.

I wonder what Stossel thinks of such an ill-educated man not just voting in elections, but in the U.S. Senate for 18 years.

I'm sure Jeff and others who have spent long hours registering voters and knocking doors can attest to this as well, but some young voters are amazingly well informed about obscure elements of civic life and some older voters are amazingly ill-informed.

For what it is worth, I'm not sure that there is actually a good argument for a typical voter to worry about the exact number of members of the U.S. Senate or the Supreme Court. And a voter who isn't particularly concerned about abortions or judicial issues is probably just fine being ignorant of Roe v. Wade.

The particular genius of democracy is that by consolidating a lot of opinions without anyone being allowed to determine which are smart, which are dumb, which are right, and which are wrong, we've found that we get the answers more often correct as a society than we do otherwise.

Here in Montana, we just successfully defeated a voter suppression effort -- more details at www.MontanaVoterSuppression.org -- that targeted not only usual suspects (new registrants, American Indians, college students), but some unlikely ones as well (me, a good friend and soldier about to deploy to Kuwait). The bad news is that all of us can be targeted by these voter suppression efforts. The good news is that pushed back against correctly, voters' rights can be protected and the perpetrators can be held accountable, both legally and politically.

I'm not that old, and I'm not a parent yet, but it seems to me that the least effective way to get a young person to not do something is to tell them not to do it. Seems it has the opposite effect, most of the time.

And this take by Stossel is wrong and irresponsible. Do we really need less participation in the system on the part of young people? Come on.

I think people that pay zero taxes (or negative taxes for that matter) should have no vote. I also believe that there should be a scale so that people that pay more taxes (the so-called evil-rich) should have more votes.

Why should people that are dependent on the government get a say so of who runs it. It's similar to inmates getting to pick the prison warden.

Any of the following should disqualify people from having the franchise:

They attend NASCAR events. They like country music. They think Sarah Palin is qualified for national office. They drive a Ford Excursion. They perceive the mainstream media as liberal. They watch Fox News. They find themselves nodding in agreement to Wall Street Journal Editorials. They think Ann Coulter and Michelle Malkin(sp?) are smart, rational, and sexy. They believe Bill O'Reilly is a populist. They listen to Celine Dion.

Hey meg, that system has been tried. It's called FEUDALISM.

Yo Mark Twain, did you know that bluegrass legend Ralph Stanley has been promoting Obama in Appalachia?

Folks, Meg is clearly some guy sitting in his bedroom salting the site with ridiculous positions.

Ignore her. Him. Erum...

Unless you are enjoying displaying your own mastery of hx, philosophy etc... that last comment was just too pat on "Meg"'s part to be authentic.

joel - Thank you; no, I wasn't aware of this.

But Bluegrass wouldn't fit under my category of "country;" it's too sophisticated and it has the word "grass" in it.

Bluegrass musicians should continue to have the franchise.

I at first thought Meg's comment was ironic, but maybe not. It sounds like something I might say: "Giving extra votes for people with extra money thing would be cool. That way people could inherit added political power more directly." (That was ironic. I believe exactly the opposite of that.)

(In addition, Charlie is correct about the irony in my previous post as well. Indeed, I wrote the voting limitations that I believe the Supreme Court has already deemed to be unconstitutional limitations to our fundamental right to vote, which we should all hold pretty sacrosanct.)

The Brent Barton suggestion on blogging is "never blog; then you never can have something taken out of context or risk writing something stupid." Perhaps an alternative plan is "have so much idiocy in print that the sheer volume will daunt anyone trying to criticize slices of it."

Pieces like Stossel's are proof that Americans get the leaders they deserve.

"Giving extra votes for people with extra money " Extra money was that a quote? "people that pay more taxes (the so-called evil-rich)" See a difference? when is enough.

Kinda like a super-delegate.

I think the painful thing we have to come to terms with is that we need to AT LEAST have a passionate and ENGAGED youth-electorate. OK, so we could end up with a ruler we really don't want or need.... but over time these youth will encounter life, life's chances (socioanthropological term related to evolutionary/population processes, btw), and consequences. AND, if not pandered to forever OR dismissed as youthful passionates often are... they WILL evolve into "better" voters, whatever that means.

I am in dialog with my son and his friends about the existential basis to vote - not een for outcomes, and also outside of what you are told by the pols and politicos. My interest is in planting these concepts for the ones who WILL feel betrayed by Obama in the years coming soon, so that they can reason their way through this cloud, this fog of True Believer Heat that is driving them to the polls for their first experience.

I myself am tussling with my jaded dismissiveness as regards their motivations, manipulability.

This is an important discussion. We need to address our own anti-youth bias underneath our veneer of doughty Progressivist orthodoxies.

And, yes, I AM speaking of more than just myself here.

ad hominem truth: John Stossel is a craven hunk of excrement. Once he was a crusading environmental reporter [he was probably just as craven in that iteration.] Then he realized the advantage of shilling for the corporate polluters and others was seek to privatize profits as they socialize costs.

All these young folks voting is what Chomsky calls [quoting the real elites of the Trilateral Commission] "an excess of democracy."

meg is a classic case - small minded, elitist, ignorant of the currents of history and governance, and Calvinist. In a word, Republican.

... and, Thomas, nothing more unsafe than a self-professed Recovering Calvinist. Lemme tell ya. Zowie. Better this open disdain as evinced by The Meg than other subverts to which I've been subjected too late awares!

Calvinist. I've never been to church. Don't axe why.

... as to Stossels' excremental status: at least he's a lookable hunka pooh.

:)

"Axe?" Hmmmmm.

Well Meg - baitin' the fishin' hole, eh?

Even worse: a secular Calvinist!

The secularity protects the Calvinist from acknowledging it's all just Bad Religion.

Not really rationality.

Toxic stuff. And our reactions to/against it? Also toxic.

Kristin, thank you. Sometimes I feel tired of speaking this piece and the typical lack of engagement or call and response. Perhaps if I were to pretend I was speaking in reference to some great "Other" for whom I progressively care.... :)... not being bitchy here, strictly, but I appreciate you breaking out of the narrow categories of value we do indulge here.

And Jenni speaks to a huge frustration I had as a High School student who wanted and needed more!

"I think people that pay zero taxes (or negative taxes for that matter) should have no vote. I also believe that there should be a scale so that people that pay more taxes (the so-called evil-rich) should have more votes. Why should people that are dependent on the government get a say so of who runs it. It's similar to inmates getting to pick the prison warden."

I think people who don't know when to use the words "who" or "that" properly should not be allowed to vote.

Chris: you silly man.

Also - did not mean for my remarks to come off as condescending! Just am glad someone else said some of the things that are so often on my mind - the disenfrahchisement of my relatives all over Indian Country has me sadly concerned, and I can't get a fix on whether anyone is engaged in making sure they are not lied to, cheated, defeated this year. It's nice to hear my concerns and one part of my knowledge base addressed by another as their own.

... thus beginneth the Republic of Critchifer!

Lo: all hail the Mighty Critchy, he who sanctifies the un-Voting.

Christopher, here is a link to Chomsky - excess et. al.

http://www.chomsky.info/books/priorities01.htm

I feel privileged to waste time blogging with folks who know not only political and economic history, but pronouns and conjunctions as well.

... and no double negative verbal algebraics? Heh.

Well, if you actually WATCH the piece, Stossel isn't just talking about young people, even though they are the ones mainly shown in the piece. The point is that too many people just "vote" without really knowing much about anything. Heck, in this country we have to pass TWO tests to drive a car...but NO tests to vote for how our country is going to run. Not that I could pass it now, but I would be all for some sort of voting "test" to make sure a person is "competent" to vote. There is a bigger point to voting than just voting.

"Voter Suppression"? Really? No, i think it's much more about knowing what you are voting for (or against) instead of just being proud that you could punch out a chad. You can't get a high school diploma without passing a few tests here and there, you can't get into the military without passing a few tests, but anyone who can sign their name (even with an "X") can vote...regardless of whether they know what they are voting for.

As can be seen by the main party who is so excited about "getting anyone and everyone to vote", ignorance is sometimes bliss. I doubt that is what our forefathers had in mind. To vote in ignorance (which i must admit i have often done) is to actually spit on the freedoms, rights, and responsibilities that so many people have died for in this country.

If it offends anyone to suggest that many of us vote in ignorance, then you probably haven't considered the issue very deeply. It's bigger than a soundbite.

tad, tad, tad,

Here are some things to ponder:

Who would decide what a certified voter needs to know?

Would it be based on knowledge of government and history, or on the issues and candidates in the election in question?

Who would administer and grade the test?

Such knowledge tests have historically been used to disenfranchise certain groups of voters, most notably, racial minorities [voter suppression].

Well,

As a matter of due diligence I watched the full piece that aired tonight. Pretty much the same as the web clip -- just a few minutes longer, but not making any additional significant points.

Interestingly, nowhere does Stossel suggest that we need to expand voter education. Nowhere does he suggest we improve civic education in schools. He doesn't even really encourage voters to get informed. He just tells underinformed voters not to vote.

If you wanted to suppress voter turnout among new voters, a good way would be telling them to stay home because they don't know enough. Indeed, according to the Pew studies, the biggest reason (young) people don't vote is fear that they don't know enough. Making that argument would also be a decent way to try to quell energy around drawing historic voter turnout.

(A crew at the Bus (led by genius Ian Greenfield) is putting together a video response. We'll show it at Candidates Gone Wild. I saw an early draft. Hilarious.)

With folks' work and help, the very real voter suppression efforts, such as are being attempted in Montana, will backfire.

So Meg wants to disenfranchise veterans whose pensions aren't taxable?

"If you wanted to suppress voter turnout among new voters, a good way would be telling them to stay home because they don't know enough"

There is a little truth to this as many properly uninformed voters made the difference in passing that Dorothy English/Porperty measure. If they either read the measure carefully or found more good evidence that was at their disposal it waould have failed like we all hoped it would. The result of the Yes vote was because of those not knowing or not really caring to read the measure.

If they just stayed home, we would have never had to be in such a panic to alter the measure's damaging effects in the first place.

tad, did I just hear you call Dems the "main party"?

Cool. You heard it here folks -- we've won.

Now, for a more-serious moment - Stossel's next bowel movement is scheduled for next week - and it will be all about comparing the candidates a la Factcheck.org.

Since this is a media-watching/critiquing blog, and we depend upon the media of the United States to provide us our grist for comprehension, it's a good idea for us to keep an eye on Stossel's tabloid faux investigative journo "offerings" and do what we should do best: critique the standards (or lack of them) shown by this denizen of the Fourth Estate. And ensure that search engines pick those up so that folks wandering aroun dout there will see the erudite commentary, read your observations and have their lives changed.

It may be of value to do this - really critique and comment on the fundamentals of media's origins, fundaments, function and efficacy.

Just a thought.

I know Stossel picking on young voters here, but his question raises a good point. Why do we want uninformed voters of any age? Don't people complain that if people were better informed that Bush wouldn't have been (re-)elected? But now if we have more uninformed voters that gives our party better shot at the White House, that makes it okay?

Rather than seeing who uninformed voters help, than justifying or vilifying it, Stossel asks a basic question that we rarely consider. To me, it was thought provoking. I would like to see more people focus on informing people of issues, so that way we could raise the level of discourse in politics. I'm tired of the "Lipstick on a Pig" or "Change vs Experience" or "Maverick" being what we're constantly exposed to.

Also, he never said they weren't allowed to vote or that right should be taken away. If anything, Stossel is known for being a staunch supporter of people's Constitutional rights, even you don't agree with them.

From his reporting over the years, I'm pretty sure Stossel is not right or left wing. He clearly disagrees with both sides of politics, and finds them both absurd.

Quotes of John Stossel:

I started out by viewing the marketplace as a cruel place, where you need intervention by government and lawyers to protect people. But after watching the regulators work, I have come to believe that markets are magical and the best protectors of the consumer. It is my job to explain the beauties of the free market.

I'm a little embarrassed about how long it took me to see the folly of most government intervention. It was probably 15 years before I really woke up to the fact that almost everything government attempts to do, it makes worse.

Stossel's no more conservative than, say, Grover Norquist.

This is quite simple. We have two statements:

"Do not vote" is anti-democratic.

"Become informed" is both pro-democratic and pro-good government.

Stossel chose to promote the former.

Arthur:

No "buts" on this. When you make a statement and then insert "but", you essentially make a statement you do not agree with, and proceed to say what you really mean.

Apparently you are ok with Stossel laying the kids. Setting them up and ridiculing them in obvious vexation.

Stossel was irresponsible in this garish piece of ventilation. He does not receive the right or privilege to diss the youth and create alienation obstacles for them and their enfranchisement.

I hear you trying to be reasonable: I do not agree with you cosigning how he got this job done.

I'm a little disappointed as to how long you'all've stayed on "spin" with this one. Does anyone have a REAL journo-link to share on this issue? Or are we just gonna keep spreading lard on the white bread?

Yours in crankiness, Bex

"Why should people that are dependent on the government get a say so of who runs it."

One way to implement this would be to prorate votes from states, like Alaska, which receive federal dollars in excess of the federal taxes they pay.

"It's similar to inmates getting to pick the prison warden."

I suppose if you view our society and constitutional government as a mirror of prison life and elected officials as wardens, guards, parole officers, etc., this makes sense. What an odd world-view...

Bex:

I guess I see things differently. I think I can disagree with Stossel (or anyone for that matter), while understanding the point he's trying to get across, and in this case agreeing with part of their point.

I disagree with him in that the focus should shift to educating the voter, rather than discouraging voting. But I do agree simply trying to just sign up as many voters as possible for the blue/red team is not ideal.

So when discussing politics with people in my life, I don't tell them to go vote for whomever I'm voting for. I explain why I think the way I do, and why I think one such candidate is better than the other. I prefer this rather than "Change" is better than "Experience".

Also, I meet a lot of people in my life through work and hobbies. When I ask people some simple questions about politics or government, I very often get the type of responses that Stossel got in that video. I think we forget how uninformed most voters are, if all we do is hang out with people interested in politics.

Anyways, don't worry. I think this election is over, and expect many states to flip from '04.

Final note. I wikipedia'd John Stossel, and in it they mention how the "belief he is conservative is untrue." It's pretty clear he's more libertarian than anything else.

Yah Arthur -- I hear what you are saying, and I heard what was at the core of what Stossel was bitching about. I just disagree with the cheapsuit approach he took. It is so easy to just strike a pose and make that noise.

The effort required to construct a thoughtful, respectful piece that is still impassioned simply did not seem to be anywhere on this man's well-funded radar.

A pity. You hear my whinge up here about the kids of my acquaintance who are gonna vote as they are told, and have not gotten the critical thinking skills yet to be a lot more than emotively employed this go-round.

But still, I'm game for real conversations, and I trust them to learn. I have to. What choice have I but to invest some hope there, and challenge them to work concepts with me. IN the very least, I try to offer them concepts that may help them descry when they are being lied to, manipulated, played over.

THis might be more important than knowing the S C judges or every president, as it might lead them into a kind of voter scholarship that frees them from the pap and pabulum we are fed about all of it!

At any rate, nice of you to discuss instead of flame. I enjoyed hearing a bit more of what motivated your post.

We probably agree, just harping on slightly different angles of it.

ask yourself - who would you rather have voting a young person who is trying to be knowledgeable in voting OR the woman who was telling John McCain that Barack is an A-RAB

<h2>Voter suppression? Of course not! Stossel was only pointing out that many young people are to uneducated to vote. I just turned 18. I wouldn't trust any of my friends with choosing the next president. They simply don't know enough! So is the solution really to have young people not vote? Of course not. As a wannabe journalist, I believe this was simply a dramatic statement to help drive the point home. What we need is some way of educating young people on how to be knowledgeable in politics.</h2>