Election Reform: If an Immigrant can do it, So Can You

When it comes to voting, Americans believe that it is the tool that helps us make a mark in our political system. And I agree with this, however, we come from a country that allow people to vote who don't know anything about the political system. So I want to ask a question "Should we allow people who know nothing about politics, vote?"

The Founding Fathers found a solution to this problem (Glenn Beck listen up). Before I go on I just want to point out to my readers(?) that the Founding Fathers were elitist. They were educated in arithmatic, greek and latin. I don't want to talk these people up, but basically what I'm saying is they had their shit together, Tea Party members. Back in the old days what we called a party they called a faction. The issue of factions came up in Federalist 10 with Madison explaining that a faction is, "a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or minority of the whole who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion interest and adverse to the rights of other citizens or to the permanent and aggregate interest of the community," meaning that a group of people who share a common interst come together who have enough momentum to shoot other ideas down, which also can be majority faction and minority faction. Factions are horrid to democracy, so Madison proposed two solutions to get rid of factions. First take away liberty. To quote Madison, "liberty to faction as air is to fire." However, Madison points out that this is foolish because liberty is essential to democracy. Next is giving everyone the same opinion. Madison argues that people are fallible and that different opinions will usually form. For America, a republican form of government is a necessity in our type of democracy because the people can elect individuals based on their wisdoms and interest. Also, if we expanded America and had more people this will create more ideas and the more ideas would create more factions and no one faction would become more dominate.

So far, I believe that this solution for protecting voters made by the Founding Fathers is true and thats why we have a government that is so unique. On the other hand, I believe that we have a government that is so confusing and big that its too much to learn about and that we have people who don't care about politics. Unfortunately, these are the people who come out and vote.

So what are we going to do about this problem? I believe that if people wanted to vote, they have to be involved in politics. Learning whats going on in government today. Politics is everywhere, it affects a person everyday. When your eating, sleeping, even shitting it still effects you. Which I don't understand why people can't seem to realize the issues of whats going on out there. For instance, according to a recent CNN article that inspired me to write this post,"Don't Let Ignorant People Vote" LZ Granderson points out that according to a recent CNN poll, when it comes to budget cuts in military spending, more than a third of the people who took the poll wanted to see cuts in military spending and that military spending accounts for thrity percent when it actually takes nineteen percent. If these are the ones who are voting they need to be informed about the issues, how a bill is passed into a law or what are the three branches of government. The latter two you can find on School House Rock (ok I only found one).

So a solution that Granderson proposed was giving them the citizenship test. About that its ashame that people who want to be us and leave their country and give up there citizenship can  take this test AND THERE NOT EVEN FROM HERE. By taking the test we could see who is actually qualified to vote. According to the test it is believe that it is common knowledge to know about the three branches of government, or naming some of the Founding Fathers, Sarah Palin I'm talking to you. The government gives us test all the time from getting a liscense for something to civics test. Why not a test for voting? I'm not trying to shut out anyone, but when you have people who know nothing about government they shouldn't be voting.