I think the segment on late night TV that I watched used to be called "street walking with jay lenno", or something along those lines.

The premise was pretty much: take a question that might sensibly appear on a GED test (highschool graduation equivalency, without the class credits), that probably at least 50% of the viewers (so adults that could afford a TV and stay awake until midnight / had just finished watching the news) would probably, if not know, have a good enough idea to say if an answer was obviously wrong. Then go out and film until you got enough bad answers to fill the segment.

I'm under no illusions that the bad examples were cherry picked, but I am also strongly inclined to believe that a "large percent" of the population isn't informed, and doesn't want to be informed, and literally just isn't fit to actually vote.

The US believes everyone should have the right to vote; and I agree with that. However I believe that every voter should be an informed voter that can at least understand the basic impact of their actions and should at least be able to pass an ECON101 test. I would really prefer a local, national, geo-political, basic law, and economics (including some light math) test as a pre-requisite for being able to vote; BUT if the test isn't passed that person would qualify for employment (lit paid) as a student, where attendance in class and academic progress would be part of the pay. If there are medical issues/etc impeding learning that should already be covered by universal health coverage (in a non-broken country).

> every voter should be an informed voter that can at least understand the basic impact of their actions

I get a feeling you think you are one of these voters. But are you, indeed? Are you really sure you can predict the impact of the actions in a system as complex as 300 million people inside trillion dollar economy? Before you answer that, remember that many people with advanced degrees tried and failed to predict things about economy, and even more people with advanced degrees are in constant and complete disagreement about what would be effect of that or this policy and what should be done to achieve this or that effect. And "unintended consequences" appears in virtually every article describing the aftermath of any serious government decision. If all those people aren't really able to figure out how things work, are you confident you are?

> should at least be able to pass an ECON101 test

Why ECON101? That course probably provides very basic knowledge (depending on the curriculum) which is next to useless when dealing with enormous and complex systems because it ignores myriad of details. It's ok for a 101 course, but if after taking this course you think that you know enough to make informed decisions about the whole US economy, then this course actually decreased the amount of your actionable knowledge. And yes, voting is making decisions about the whole US economy, ultimately.

> I would really prefer a local, national, geo-political, basic law, and economics (including some light math) test as a pre-requisite for being able to vote

Are you sure you would pass? What if I will be writing the test and make every effort to make you not pass (you don't think politicians would ignore an opportunity as juicy as disenfranchasing a huge number of their opponents' base?)?

You understand also that making decisions for people that can not vote is the reverse of what representative democracy is, and a just cause for rebellion? If any situation justifies violent overthrowing of a government, it is a situation where the government denies participation in vote to a class of citizens which committed no crime, did nothing wrong but failed to satisfy an arbitrary criteria somebody instituted to not let them vote because they didn't like what they might choose. Who would consider such a government a legitimate one? You probably wouldn't, if you were one of the disenfranchised people. But somehow nobody thinks they will fail the test.

The part of ECON101 that I remember most distinctly is that we kept doing supply and demand curves. We kept doing that until the professor was absolutely sure that everyone knew what happened when supply was infinite, or when demand was inelastic, or when supply was a hard fixed quantity but the needs of the market kept growing.

It's really basic stuff, that's why it's a 101 course. However the realities of that kind of course should be remembered and applied to things like "rent control" that acts as an outside influence on where the curves meet, but doesn't actually change the supply or demand directly. Knowledge that would help with assessing the possible intended and unintended results of different laws.

Your criticism of minimal knowledge is correct. Your analysis that its insufficient to decide complex issues is correct. Your thoughts that its insufficient even to choose among 2 candidates positions on the matter is probably correct.

However you miss a points. It's not always or not even often about picking from 2 complex alternatives. It's often a matter of eliminating options that are stupid, illogical, or inconsistent. Doing so often requires basic literacy in the topic involved.

Unfortunately you are right in that disenfranchising a large number of idiots would upend social order even if it was only eliminating those who literally have no idea what is going on.

> It's often a matter of eliminating options that are stupid, illogical, or inconsistent.

But how do you know which options are stupid? Because they sound stupid to you? Are you confident enough in your powers of detecting stupid that you would base denying people basic rights on it? What gives you that enormous confidence?

> if it was only eliminating those who literally have no idea what is going on.

The number of people who have an idea what is going on, when we're talking about things like whole US economy, might be surprisingly small. In fact, sometimes I am tempted to think that number is zero. Of course, for me it makes me think maybe we need less government involvement, since a blind giant with a sledgehammer is worse than a blind giant without one, but some people think that means we need to abandon democracy. OK, but unless you are an anarchist, how do you propose to choose the government then? By instituting a series of exams? Chinese tried that, actually. Not sure it worked that spectacularly well. Check it out.

While I understand your sentiment, these voter requirements would completely disenfranchise those who literally don't have access to quality education, especially POC who have been subject to systemic oppression (See redlining).

The solution should be to level the playing field (Access to education), not to change the rules of the game from under them.

Did you overlook my second to last sentence?

... "BUT if the test isn't passed that person would qualify for employment (lit paid) as a student, where attendance in class and academic progress would be part of the pay."

Here's an example for you: recent headline from NYT: Which Health Policies Actually Work? We Rarely Find Out https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/09/upshot/which-health-polic...

Yeah that's right - nobody knows which healthcare programs work. Neither literal idiots, nor uneducated hillbillies, nor ECON101 graduates, nor PHD-bearing professors, nor politicians, nor NYT journalists, nobody has any good information. On a topic as important as which healthcare policies actually work. So what's the point on insisting on ECON101? There's just no information about it, and nobody cares about getting one.