Should there be a test to vote?

A test for voting violates a civilian’s right to vote

Question: Should there be a test to vote?
Position‹2 of 2: No, there shouldn't be a test to vote
Argument1 of 3›: A test for voting violates a civilian’s right to vote

Civilians have a right to say how they want to be governed. In the past, people have been kept from voting because of their race by using tests against them. If there are tests now, people could become offended.

The argument

This argument treats the vote as a right rather than a qualification, and holds that any test imposed upon it violates the right by converting it into something that must be earned. The historical case offered is American. During the Jim Crow era African Americans were subject to voting tests, and for years a great many were unable to vote because of them. What that experience is taken to establish is not merely that tests can be abused but how the abuse operates. A test does not have to name the group it is meant to exclude. It need only set a threshold and leave its administration to officials, and the exclusion can then be carried out while the rule itself appears neutral on its face. The record shows the mechanism working at scale and over a sustained period. From that the argument puts a question rather than a prediction: if tests were allowed again, what type of people would be excluded? The question is pointed because the answer does not depend on the intentions of whoever drafts the test. Any threshold will fall unevenly across a population whose schooling, language and circumstances differ, so the people filtered out will be those already least well served — and the same discretion that operated under Jim Crow would be available again to whoever applied the rule. The underlying principle is that rights are not contingent on measured attributes. It would not be right for people to be denied their rights because of their level of intelligence, their race or their gender, and a voting test makes the franchise turn on precisely such attributes. Because a test for voting violates a civilian's right to vote, there should not be a test to vote.

Premises

[P1]Voting tests violate a person's fundamental right to vote, as shown under Jim Crow when literacy tests kept many African Americans from the ballot for years. [P2] Reviving such tests would again exclude people based on intelligence, race or gender, unjustly denying them their rights. [C] Because a voting test violates a civilian's right to vote, there should not be a test to vote.

Counter-arguments

The tests would not discriminate against people because of their identity. The tests would make sure that people who know how important voting is would be allowed to vote. When people want to get a job, sometimes employers can test them to see if they're good for the job.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P2] The country’s political health is more important than a civilian’s rights. In fact, it’s a civilian’s duty to make sure the country runs smoothly.