Should there be a test to vote?

A voting test is likely to be biased so it should not be used

Question: Should there be a test to vote?
Position‹2 of 2: No, there shouldn't be a test to vote
Argument‹2 of 3›: A voting test is likely to be biased so it should not be used

Biases are always present in people’s lives. Because of that, should people have a bias while voting?

The argument

A test to vote would have to be justified by some improvement in the electorate it produced, and the improvement usually intended is a reduction in ill-founded or prejudiced voting. This argument holds that the goal is unreachable, because bias is not a defect some voters happen to have and others do not. Everyone has biases, and they are acquired before anyone chooses them. Children grow up around parents and a community that shape what they believe, which questions seem important, and which conclusions feel obvious. The process starts extremely early — even a baby's brain picks up on social cues from its guardians — and it never afterwards operates on a blank slate. Whatever an adult voter believes arrives attached to a history of that kind. Given this, a voting test cannot do the work asked of it. There is no unbiased population against which biased voters could be identified, so a test would not separate the two; it would measure something else, such as literacy, schooling or familiarity with a particular way of framing questions, and exclude people on that basis. Worse, the test itself would have to be written by people whose own biases shaped what counted as a correct answer. Instead of filtering bias out of the electorate, it would install one group's biases as the condition of admission to it. That leaves a requirement which disenfranchises citizens without achieving its stated aim. Voting tests won't reduce the number of biased voters, because biases can't be avoided and every test is written from inside one. Since there is no point in a barrier that cannot deliver what it promises and would exclude people arbitrarily in the attempt, there shouldn't be a test to vote.

Premises

[P1]A voting test would aim to reduce biased voters, but everyone holds biases shaped from childhood by family and community. [P2] Since bias is unavoidable and universal, a test could not screen it out. [P3] A test that cannot achieve its purpose serves no point. [C] Therefore, because a voting test would be biased and ineffective, there should not be a test to vote.

Counter-arguments

Even though everyone has a bias, people can put it aside to make important decisions. Since, other people won’t be willing to do that, it’s important to get as many unbiased people voting as possible.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P2] Although everyone has some sort of bias, it can be “put away” to make important decisions.