Makes sense, except in practice. It results in rigged tests, poll taxes, and generally racist bigoted systems that keep some classes down. We don't have a 'one man - one vote' system in America by accident, but in response to a wide understanding of how prevalent such rigging was back then.

With all due respect I don't even think America has a "one man one vote system" in practice. The idea of super pacs and an easily manipulated populace combined with a bipartisan political system seems to me like America is living the illusion of democracy. The current system already keeps certain classes down. Blacks and Hispanics don't tend to have the same voter turn out as wealthy white folks do. Besides, does the current system even address their needs? It seems biased towards helping the wealthy. So I'm not sure in practice democracy is doing a great job.

>many people don't have the required IQ to participate in their own governance, as such maybe it's time to prevent them from doing so

Subjugate: to make someone or something subordinate.

Does your statement not fit the definition? Forcing someone out of their inalienable rights because they don't pass an arbitrarily dictated exam is to make them subordinates or untermensch. Epistocracy was a common method used to prevent blacks from voting in the southern United States.

You made the incorrect assumption that voting is an inalienable right. By who's standard? We've lived most of our history without the right to vote and survival of the fittest was the way humanity and nature functioned (I.e. the strongest rule). And no, episitocracy wasn't used in the south. Blacks weren't considered human. That's not the same as episitocracy. Those are two very different issues. It's not quite episitocracy if the same standard isn't being applied to the entire population. In the south the literacy tests were being given ONLY to black people even though alot of the white people who were allowed to vote simply for being white probably wouldn't have passed those tests. http://www.wpr.org/georgetown-philosopher-right-vote-defect-...

>It's not quite episitocracy if the same standard isn't being applied to the entire population.

What about the people who get to determine what the test questions are? Are they not by default held at a higher standard than the rest of the population?