Imagine two voters. One knows every name on the ballot and is informed about who he/she is voting for and the other has no idea what he/she is doing. Should both have the same voting rights, even though the educated voter has more of a stake in society and will more likely choose the better option?

If you are worried about your health you don’t go ask five random people on the street, but instead a doctor, because the doctor has put more time into learning how to interpret the signs of illness. In most cases, random people would just be guessing. Educated people have invested the time to be able to understand their country. An uninformed voter does not deserve the right to vote, if he/she knows nothing about the issues; it would be like the random people guessing about whether you have a fatal disease. The educated voter clearly has a higher stake in the outcome of the election, as they have invested a larger portion of their time and mind into their country.

If you ask your friends for a good documentary and they say “Star Wars, it’s a great sci-fi”, you can’t really take their response seriously, because they clearly don’t understand the difference between a documentary and a fantasy. If voters can’t tell what a politician is talking about, their vote clearly can’t be taken seriously either. For example, a voter might insist climate change is not an immediate threat, even if they don’t know what climate change is or how it’s measured. An informed voter will have analyzed climate change and will choose the candidate whose position is supported by scientific evidence. Too often, uninformed voters believe what they want to believe, and they assume climate change isn’t a threat because they don’t want to have to change their lives because of it or make any sacrifices.

Many deny that there’s any fair or reliable way to determine who is informed enough to vote and point to the  unfortunate history of voter qualifications being used to keep women, minorities, and immigrants from participating in our political process. However, America has changed. We have abolished slavery, expanded our umbrella of rights to minorities, and our systems are more fair and less likely to be prejudicial. Our history doesn’t mean that fair, reliable, and practical voter qualifications can’t be created by people who embrace these changes.

There is, in fact, an easy way to determine who knows enough about the country to vote that we have used for many generations. The naturalization test that is given to immigrants applying for citizenship questions basic knowledge about the government and keeps people who are totally uninformed about the system from voting. 97.5% of immigrants applying for citizenship pass this test, while only about 60% of natural born citizens pass the exact same test. In other words, a significant portion of natural born voters clearly don’t know enough to vote responsibly. This test would encourage some uninformed citizens to go and research the constitutional system and thus cause them to choose better leaders. It is a quick and easy way to filter out those who won’t elect the best leader for the country.

If one of two voters is more invested in a country, has a better sense of what is optimal for the country, and is more likely to choose a better leader, they should have more of a say because their opinion is clearly more valuable. Choosing good leaders is important for the fate of a country and to choose a good leader it is crucial that we have qualified voters.  Issues like global warming, nuclear weapons, and Syrian refugees deserve to be addressed by voters who have an understanding of these issues.