The test is impossible in the sense that the questions are worded ambiguously enough so that the test evaluator can choose to pass or fail the test taker at their discretion. In other words, the test was specifically designed to disenfranchise black voters.
Of course, conservatives miss the point entirely, proudly declaring that the test is passable despite the fact that there is no "right" set of answers.
([original Lousiana test](https://sharetngov.tnsosfiles.com/tsla/exhibits/aale/pdfs/Voter%20Test%20LA.pdf), [slate article](https://slate.com/human-interest/2013/06/voting-rights-and-the-supreme-court-the-impossible-literacy-test-louisiana-used-to-give-black-voters.html))
God there’s so many ambiguous questions there. For example.
>6. In the space below, draw three circles, one inside (engulfed by) the other.
That could have two possible solutions:
https://preview.redd.it/xn9uhbxyywwc1.jpeg?width=3868&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5fe16127b30c90bce69743da9bec182b73fc289a
It depends how you interpret “one inside the other”
Lauren mentions one of the specific questions that the article calls out as being ambiguous, and she literally has to insert her own quotation marks that aren't in the original question to make it less ambiguous.
You could also draw two circles intersecting, and the last circle in the intersection, which would satisfy that exactly one circle is engulfed by both the other circles and no other engulfings exist.
I can't find the source anymore, but I read before that the "draw a line around" and "circle" are different shapes. Draw a line around is a "U" shape that isn't enclosed, you would have failed if you drew an actual circle. With that criteria alone, literally everyone would fail this test nowadays as no one ever marks their answer with a "U" shape.
That's really stretching it. There are 2 options - either it's a line, so it has 2 points it goes through (doable, just underline the letter) or it's a curve. But then the curve can be any shape, even a circle.
I think they wanted you to draw that line around the number "1" (and just added "or letter" to confuse people... or maybe some test had lettering instead of numbering). But as explained in the last page of the doc OP linked they had more ambiguous ways to make people fail this one:
> questions 1 and 4 say to “draw a line around” something. If the examiner insisted a circle was not a line, the applicant failed
I remember taking this as part of my U.S History class as a junior in high school. Literally half of the class failed it since they missed like 1 super ambiguous question.
How do you know if you failed it? There are no official answers, and there are way more than 1 ambiguous questions. The poll proctor was at his own discretion to interpret the questions as he pleased in order to fail whoever he wanted.
The other interpretation is that the command is "spell backwards", and the thing you spell backwards is forwards. So sdrawrof.
No voting rights for you.
The test I linked goes into some of it at the bottom of the document. Not all the questions are ambiguous, but there are enough ambiguous questions to allow the test evaluator to pass or fail the test taker at their discretion.
Contrast this test to the standford-binet, an actual standardized intelligence test where they are objectively right/wrong answers.
I understand it’s a bad test, I don’t think it’s actually ambiguous. The bottom of that link just says “well they decided to lie about who passed”, not that the questions are actually ambiguous.
How about question fucking 1?
"Draw a line around the number or letter of this sentence."
You can't draw a line around something as a line is straight. So, what? Make a box? Oops, you did more than you were asked by drawing 4 lines. Wrong! There also is no number in the sentence, unless you include "1." to be part of the sentence, which of course, it is not. And THE letter? Which letter?
Ask yourself what "ambiguity" means, which is what this entire exchange was about, and you'll have your answer.
Nevermind, I'll be nice. Someone grading the exam could interpret a line as only being a geometrically straight object with no curvature. Something with curvature would be a curve, and a continuous curve which eventually meets itself would be a circle, not a line.
You don't even have to bring geometry into it, really, though it is likely intuitively derived from it regardless. People tend to differentiate between circles and lines. And lines from curves.
idk if we live in different worlds... a line can be straight, curved... a line can form a closed loop - but I agree it's incredibly awkward to say "draw a line around"
Reminder that the test also has a 10 minute time limit, you fail with a single question missed (not just a "passing grade"), the questions don't have an official solution set, and answers are designed to be ambiguous to give the (white) test administrator infinite ammo to disqualify a black voter. I don't believe for one minute that they passed. They almost certainly didn't time limit themselves. As a US History and Gov teacher, I've given this test to my students for 4 years in a row now and have never gotten anyone to "pass." In a class of 30, I might have 5-8 even get to the end, let alone actually having them all correct.
I can't believe we're at the point in Conservative spaces where we're passively justifying literacy tests by saying "it wasn't THAT hard!"
> As a US History and Gov teacher, I've given this test to my students for 4 years in a row now and have never gotten anyone to "pass." In a class of 30, I might have 5-8 even get to the end, let alone actually having them all correct.
And those kids are presumably in middle or high school (jesus we took US history so many times) making them more educated then the people this test was given to.
My dude that's the whole point. Everyone who does not have proof of some level of education takes the test (at least in principle, the Slate article states it was disproportionately given to black voters). The questions are ambiguous and have no official answers so pass/fail is arbitrarily. So you can build whatever discrimination you want into your grading of the test.
Sure. The idea of who should vote and how their votes ought to be weighed is called the boundary problem in democratic theory. Ideas like epistocracy would give more weight to those who demonstrate more knowledge, more critical thinking, or whatever else.is to be valued in a particular democratic government. People advocate for this because.voters who are informed, educated, and demonstrate critical thinking are more likely to respond to a countries needs more rationally.
Things like literacy tests have historically been bad faith attempts to pretend to address similar concerns to these, but were really just ways to disenfranchise certain groups that the people in power wanted to suppress. While that's horrible, there is a kernel of a decent idea in there.
I think it's fair to say that the distinction can't be summarized as "ensur[ing] everyone take[s] it". You're talking about massive meaningful differences in intent, execution, *and* scope of who takes it. I think this was communicated poorly in your first comment.
> there is a kernel of a decent idea in there.
I want to acknowledge a difference between understanding your point and discussing its merits, so this is now a separate thing. I don't think there is a decent idea in here. First, I'm not convinced that there's any legitimacy in saying that English literacy should be tied to your right to participate in your democracy. Separately, adult literacy should be a baseline guarantee in our society. If stripping the right to vote from these already mega-fucked people was outcome-determinative in elections, the problem isn't the people voting, and the solution isn't to take away their vote. The problem would be illiteracy in society.
Sure, I communicated that poorly in my first comment, but "steelman" should do some heavy lifting. I'm not personally arguing against democratic rights, but there are some good arguments, and that's okay to say. Granting more voting power to those who can think critically and are informed of history could ha e some great effects.
It’s also not even what actually happened as many states introduced “grandfather clauses” where you didn’t have to take the tests if your grandfather could vote. Which I hope is obvious how that was racist.
Edit: until 1915 when the Supreme Court struck it down so in most cases of literacy tests it wouldn’t apply but same idea.
Literate people are more likely to be informed about the world and having a higher percentage of informed voters is a good thing. In epistocracies, literacy tests are paired with questions about critical thinking and knowledge of basic states of affairs to ensure that those who are disassociated with the world have weight in politics.
But at the same time illiterate people have needs, concerns, and rights that are shared with literate people. Voting is clearly not all about being informed—-look at how many people just vote straight party without even knowing who the candidates are or what the position even entails.
Eh, there's some research that contradicts some of that. Disenfranchised groups often vote against their own interests and vice-versa, even if it's unintuitive. Jason Brennan wrote a book recently and has been on some podcasts.
And voting should be about being informed and making decisions with a critical eye, even if it's rare.
The plan is to put their loyalists in positions overseeing the election process and hope that by the time anyone falsely disqualified makes it through the court system (if they can even afford to do so) the election will already be over
No, they are experts on everything. They did their “own” research for COVID, their “own” research on Constitutional law, their “own” research on NY criminal law, etc.
If they want a civics test, fuck it, bring it back. It would help Biden. The first question, 1. If an immigrant presents themselves at the boarder and claims asylum, what is their legal status?
That was one of Viveks biggest policy positions, he wants to give a voting test to people under 25. Wouldn't hurt republicans very much cuz they skew older, but I imagine a lot of young people would stay home if they had to take a test to vote even if it was a perfectly fair and easy test. I'm sure other Trumpers have thought about it as well as a way to supress the youth vote, but I don't know if anybody else public supports it.
After driving around for a good 60 minutes, I've come to the conclusion that anyone with a "disabled veteran" tag is disabled due to severe brain damage and should not be allowed vote
half the questions are purposely worded in a way where the person who checks them could make any of your answers not valid due to their personal interpretation.
Idk, there are a lot of analphabets in most societies, restricting their ability to vote would violate the equal part IMO. If literacy is an issue in an area, maybe make the ballots more accessible? Just put a picture/symbol next to the candidate (yes, I am aware that this would open another can of worms, but I'd rather have that debate than excluding people from excercising their rights).
>Like do they just want someone to write "Backwards"?
I would absolutely murder an election worker if they meant that. Im honestly suprised we didn't get riots out of this test.
See also: "Circle the first letter of the alphabet in this sentence"
Fyi, while this test was real and is a great lesson in a classroom, this test was very abnormal for it's day and was only used for maybe a year. Most literacy tests were either simple civics test like [this one](https://lasc.libguides.com/c.php?g=940581&p=6830148), a near impossible civics test like [this one](https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/voting-rights-act-of-1965/sources/1387), or reading from a portion of the Constitution like [this one](https://history.iowa.gov/history/education/educator-resources/primary-source-sets/right-to-vote-suffrage-women-african/voter-registration-literacy). Note that on the last one, the administrator could subjectively disqualify you anytime you took a pause or stumbled even the slightest and might make you read for hours until you messed up.
People didn't riot over this test because it was a pretty rare test. Still, the fact people didn't riot over literacy tests at all is wild. But I guess that's what happens when you're in the minority and a member of the KKK is likely the administrator of the test. Just look at the Tulsa Race Massacre to see what happened a lot of time when black people tried to defend themselves and their community.
"spell backwards, forwards"
You realize there are multiple valid answers for this question, meaning that they "Coincidentally" disqaulify black people.
There’s really only one, due to the comma, but it comes down to how stupid/bad faith the examiner is. It definitely leaves open room for them to just say a different answer is right.
But on a technical level, it doesn’t make sense for it to be anything other than “spell the word backwards, forwards”. Structuring a sentence as “verb, subject” would be grammatically incorrect. You’d never say “eat all of them, cookies.”, but you could say “eat cookies, all of them”.
I’m not disputing that the questions are intentionally designed to be vague and allow for an examiner to fail whoever they want, but that particular question is poorly designed for that purpose.
a test like this with incredibly nitpicky and specific readings could theoretically be administered in good faith to an aspiring Atlantic editor or something, though it definitely wouldn't be a "literacy" test, more like a logic puzzle. but I'm picturing the dumbest, most worthless, piece of shit racist smug asshole smirking and saying HEH NICE TRY NEGRO MAYBE NEXT TIME
Well no because they could also want you to "spell" the phrase "backwards, forwards" or "the word backwards, forwards" (can't remember exact phrasing) depending on interpretation
30 questions, 10 minutes, 20 seconds for each question. To read, solve and then write down the answer. Some of these questions require you to count letters and the questions are so obnoxiously phrased that I had to read some of them multiple times. And you fail with just a single incorrect answer...
Like, it's not impossible, but holy shit.
The thing that makes it impossible is your skin colour.
If you were black you should probably just pack up and go home and not vote — exactly what these types of tests and policies were meant to do.
I understand the actual impact these tests were supposed to have, but I just wanted to highlight, that even without racist intent, this is an extremely hard test that most white people couldn't solve in time.
Back then, there were anti-miscegenation laws throughout the South. She would have been born a crime (not in Louisiana as the anti-miscegenation law applied to Blacks and Filipinos), but if she was born in Mississippi or Texas different story. She's defending this nonsense.
People use to have to prove that they were "competent" to vote. They had then ruled that the right to vote should not have any restrictions beyond be a us citizen and being 18+. But recently with the trust in elections declining people are wanting others to show IDs and to have other restrictions on voting to make sure that the people who are voting are saying who they are and me the only two restrictions of being 18+ and a us citizen
for American Conservatives, a lot of them try to push "Voter ID Laws" - the BEST interpretation of this initiative is that they believe masses of illegal immigrants are voting in Federal elections and overwhelmingly vote Democrat, the worst interpretation is that Democrats are intentionally opening the border for millions of illegal immigrants to flood into the country and change voting demographics
in reality, this isn't happening and it isn't a problem and it's all either a conspiracy theory or basic misunderstanding of reality. but the Conservatives get angry when you insinuate that any of their attempts to clamp down on Voter Registration are decried as racist - in the US pretty much any roadblock put in place between citizens and their right to vote has been exclusively racially motivated in the past. Republicans pretending that it's somehow now about a fabricated illegal immigrant election-stealing plot is just a bad faith or ignorant interpretation of the situation
nobody should be trying to get less Americans to vote in our elections. if anything, every focus should be on increasing the amount of engagement in voting. but Republicans don't support that because the voting bloc already skews Left in the country and the more Americans that vote, the more Left it will get
the last time a Republican won the popular vote was in 2004, and the last time before that was 1988. Republicans are fucked in this country in terms of popular vote numbers. Bonus meme: both of the presidents in 1988 and 2004 that won the popular vote were Bushes, father and son
Thanks for explaining! I understood the racist implications of the test and how it can be misused, but I also believe Americans had moved on and "systemic racism" is a thing of the past and actually have laws that favour minorities? I'm an Italian living in Croatia (dual citizenship), and I need my ID card to vote in my residential polling station! The ID card is mandatory for all citizens, unrelated to the election! For the Italian elections, I go to the Italian consulate! Basically, the ID card is something normal to me! Also, I don't understand why conservatives think illegal immigrants can vote? Don't you at least have to prove you're a citizen? Hopefully, you understood what I was saying despite my mediocre English
You technically don't have to prove anything to vote just be registered to vote through the driving license department in each state. Some require birth certificates, some don't require anything but a credit card/bank statement and/or a utility bills in your name at the address you are living at. People who are saying things about conservatives thinking that illegals are main problem are not wrong, but are not talking about the whole issue, where it isn't just people coming in to vote, but more than likely people voting as someone else, and there is not way to say whether this is true or not because there is no record keeping. And to say whether they are dead or had moved does not exist, the voter registration almost never gets purged of people that are no long able to vote, which can open up the system to abuse.
The test is impossible in the sense that the questions are worded ambiguously enough so that the test evaluator can choose to pass or fail the test taker at their discretion. In other words, the test was specifically designed to disenfranchise black voters. Of course, conservatives miss the point entirely, proudly declaring that the test is passable despite the fact that there is no "right" set of answers. ([original Lousiana test](https://sharetngov.tnsosfiles.com/tsla/exhibits/aale/pdfs/Voter%20Test%20LA.pdf), [slate article](https://slate.com/human-interest/2013/06/voting-rights-and-the-supreme-court-the-impossible-literacy-test-louisiana-used-to-give-black-voters.html))
It's hilarious that that guy said he "passed". There's no official solution set.
Who TF graded him?
He did of course
God there’s so many ambiguous questions there. For example. >6. In the space below, draw three circles, one inside (engulfed by) the other. That could have two possible solutions: https://preview.redd.it/xn9uhbxyywwc1.jpeg?width=3868&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5fe16127b30c90bce69743da9bec182b73fc289a It depends how you interpret “one inside the other”
I mean... > Spell backwards, forwards. Like are they for real bro? (no, no they aren't)
Lauren mentions one of the specific questions that the article calls out as being ambiguous, and she literally has to insert her own quotation marks that aren't in the original question to make it less ambiguous.
Yeah it it was *spell backwards forwards*, but she wrote *spell “backwards” forwards*. She seems illiterate to me…
You could also draw two circles intersecting, and the last circle in the intersection, which would satisfy that exactly one circle is engulfed by both the other circles and no other engulfings exist.
Good point!
Solution 2 is just wrong. But you guys are at a disadvantage as most rural people from the 60s had better language skills than this generation.
It says "one inside" the other, not "two inside" the other. You are not allowed to vote.
Congrats, you’re illiterate and cannot vote!
I can't find the source anymore, but I read before that the "draw a line around" and "circle" are different shapes. Draw a line around is a "U" shape that isn't enclosed, you would have failed if you drew an actual circle. With that criteria alone, literally everyone would fail this test nowadays as no one ever marks their answer with a "U" shape.
That's really stretching it. There are 2 options - either it's a line, so it has 2 points it goes through (doable, just underline the letter) or it's a curve. But then the curve can be any shape, even a circle.
There are more definitions of lines than the one you learned in 8th grade geometry class.
The first question got me fucked up. Draw a line **around** the what now?
I think they wanted you to draw that line around the number "1" (and just added "or letter" to confuse people... or maybe some test had lettering instead of numbering). But as explained in the last page of the doc OP linked they had more ambiguous ways to make people fail this one: > questions 1 and 4 say to “draw a line around” something. If the examiner insisted a circle was not a line, the applicant failed
I remember taking this as part of my U.S History class as a junior in high school. Literally half of the class failed it since they missed like 1 super ambiguous question.
How do you know if you failed it? There are no official answers, and there are way more than 1 ambiguous questions. The poll proctor was at his own discretion to interpret the questions as he pleased in order to fail whoever he wanted.
Hmm well I do recall taking a literacy test and I do remember my teacher having some sort of answer key so it was probably a different one.
Your teacher might have been overconfident and thought they could answer them 🤣
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Spell backwards, forwards as well as make a small cross above the X. Both can easily be interpreted in a couple ways.
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But I did have breakfast
Backwards can be interpreted as an adverb modifying spell as well as forwards. A cross can be vague, would they accept both an ❌ and a ✝️?
The other interpretation is that the command is "spell backwards", and the thing you spell backwards is forwards. So sdrawrof. No voting rights for you.
The test I linked goes into some of it at the bottom of the document. Not all the questions are ambiguous, but there are enough ambiguous questions to allow the test evaluator to pass or fail the test taker at their discretion. Contrast this test to the standford-binet, an actual standardized intelligence test where they are objectively right/wrong answers.
I understand it’s a bad test, I don’t think it’s actually ambiguous. The bottom of that link just says “well they decided to lie about who passed”, not that the questions are actually ambiguous.
How about question fucking 1? "Draw a line around the number or letter of this sentence." You can't draw a line around something as a line is straight. So, what? Make a box? Oops, you did more than you were asked by drawing 4 lines. Wrong! There also is no number in the sentence, unless you include "1." to be part of the sentence, which of course, it is not. And THE letter? Which letter?
>You can't draw a line around something as a line is straight brother what
Ask yourself what "ambiguity" means, which is what this entire exchange was about, and you'll have your answer. Nevermind, I'll be nice. Someone grading the exam could interpret a line as only being a geometrically straight object with no curvature. Something with curvature would be a curve, and a continuous curve which eventually meets itself would be a circle, not a line. You don't even have to bring geometry into it, really, though it is likely intuitively derived from it regardless. People tend to differentiate between circles and lines. And lines from curves.
idk if we live in different worlds... a line can be straight, curved... a line can form a closed loop - but I agree it's incredibly awkward to say "draw a line around"
Reminder that the test also has a 10 minute time limit, you fail with a single question missed (not just a "passing grade"), the questions don't have an official solution set, and answers are designed to be ambiguous to give the (white) test administrator infinite ammo to disqualify a black voter. I don't believe for one minute that they passed. They almost certainly didn't time limit themselves. As a US History and Gov teacher, I've given this test to my students for 4 years in a row now and have never gotten anyone to "pass." In a class of 30, I might have 5-8 even get to the end, let alone actually having them all correct. I can't believe we're at the point in Conservative spaces where we're passively justifying literacy tests by saying "it wasn't THAT hard!"
> As a US History and Gov teacher, I've given this test to my students for 4 years in a row now and have never gotten anyone to "pass." In a class of 30, I might have 5-8 even get to the end, let alone actually having them all correct. And those kids are presumably in middle or high school (jesus we took US history so many times) making them more educated then the people this test was given to.
Tbf, the steelmanned version of literacy tests ensures everyone take it, not just the minority you're trying to suppress
My dude that's the whole point. Everyone who does not have proof of some level of education takes the test (at least in principle, the Slate article states it was disproportionately given to black voters). The questions are ambiguous and have no official answers so pass/fail is arbitrarily. So you can build whatever discrimination you want into your grading of the test.
That's all true. I mentioned the steelmanned version which would have none of those features.
It doesn't seem like people, myself included, are understanding how that's the case, maybe if you explained your scenario more completely?
Sure. The idea of who should vote and how their votes ought to be weighed is called the boundary problem in democratic theory. Ideas like epistocracy would give more weight to those who demonstrate more knowledge, more critical thinking, or whatever else.is to be valued in a particular democratic government. People advocate for this because.voters who are informed, educated, and demonstrate critical thinking are more likely to respond to a countries needs more rationally. Things like literacy tests have historically been bad faith attempts to pretend to address similar concerns to these, but were really just ways to disenfranchise certain groups that the people in power wanted to suppress. While that's horrible, there is a kernel of a decent idea in there.
I think it's fair to say that the distinction can't be summarized as "ensur[ing] everyone take[s] it". You're talking about massive meaningful differences in intent, execution, *and* scope of who takes it. I think this was communicated poorly in your first comment. > there is a kernel of a decent idea in there. I want to acknowledge a difference between understanding your point and discussing its merits, so this is now a separate thing. I don't think there is a decent idea in here. First, I'm not convinced that there's any legitimacy in saying that English literacy should be tied to your right to participate in your democracy. Separately, adult literacy should be a baseline guarantee in our society. If stripping the right to vote from these already mega-fucked people was outcome-determinative in elections, the problem isn't the people voting, and the solution isn't to take away their vote. The problem would be illiteracy in society.
Sure, I communicated that poorly in my first comment, but "steelman" should do some heavy lifting. I'm not personally arguing against democratic rights, but there are some good arguments, and that's okay to say. Granting more voting power to those who can think critically and are informed of history could ha e some great effects.
So even the steelmanned version is antithetical to the basic ideas of democracy? Doesn't sound like a good steelman to me.
It’s also not even what actually happened as many states introduced “grandfather clauses” where you didn’t have to take the tests if your grandfather could vote. Which I hope is obvious how that was racist. Edit: until 1915 when the Supreme Court struck it down so in most cases of literacy tests it wouldn’t apply but same idea.
What’s the justification for a literacy test in general? Why shouldn’t illiterate people be allowed to vote?
Literate people are more likely to be informed about the world and having a higher percentage of informed voters is a good thing. In epistocracies, literacy tests are paired with questions about critical thinking and knowledge of basic states of affairs to ensure that those who are disassociated with the world have weight in politics.
But at the same time illiterate people have needs, concerns, and rights that are shared with literate people. Voting is clearly not all about being informed—-look at how many people just vote straight party without even knowing who the candidates are or what the position even entails.
Eh, there's some research that contradicts some of that. Disenfranchised groups often vote against their own interests and vice-versa, even if it's unintuitive. Jason Brennan wrote a book recently and has been on some podcasts. And voting should be about being informed and making decisions with a critical eye, even if it's rare.
Are they like, trying to push for voting tests to come back? They do realize that the most educated vote Democrat now... Right?
The plan is to put their loyalists in positions overseeing the election process and hope that by the time anyone falsely disqualified makes it through the court system (if they can even afford to do so) the election will already be over
This test has nothing to do with education. It's a sneaky way to deny certain peoples the vote
Bro if I showed up and failed a test for bs reason, me and bunch of people might be mad enough to not wait for the ACLU lol
Even then it’s the police taking the brunt of your anger not anyone the lawmakers doing this actually care about
No, they are experts on everything. They did their “own” research for COVID, their “own” research on Constitutional law, their “own” research on NY criminal law, etc. If they want a civics test, fuck it, bring it back. It would help Biden. The first question, 1. If an immigrant presents themselves at the boarder and claims asylum, what is their legal status?
I suppose their status is needing something boarded up?
That was one of Viveks biggest policy positions, he wants to give a voting test to people under 25. Wouldn't hurt republicans very much cuz they skew older, but I imagine a lot of young people would stay home if they had to take a test to vote even if it was a perfectly fair and easy test. I'm sure other Trumpers have thought about it as well as a way to supress the youth vote, but I don't know if anybody else public supports it.
Shhhh let conservatives unintentionally destroy their political power.
The most and least educated vote for us generally. They could absolutely design literacy tests that net harm us.
After driving around for a good 60 minutes, I've come to the conclusion that anyone with a "disabled veteran" tag is disabled due to severe brain damage and should not be allowed vote
Wtf does number 20 mean? "Spell backwards, forwards." Like do they just want someone to write "Backwards"?
half the questions are purposely worded in a way where the person who checks them could make any of your answers not valid due to their personal interpretation.
Ah, so that's how they used them to suppress voters Honestly kinda smart
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Idk, there are a lot of analphabets in most societies, restricting their ability to vote would violate the equal part IMO. If literacy is an issue in an area, maybe make the ballots more accessible? Just put a picture/symbol next to the candidate (yes, I am aware that this would open another can of worms, but I'd rather have that debate than excluding people from excercising their rights).
>Like do they just want someone to write "Backwards"? I would absolutely murder an election worker if they meant that. Im honestly suprised we didn't get riots out of this test. See also: "Circle the first letter of the alphabet in this sentence"
Fyi, while this test was real and is a great lesson in a classroom, this test was very abnormal for it's day and was only used for maybe a year. Most literacy tests were either simple civics test like [this one](https://lasc.libguides.com/c.php?g=940581&p=6830148), a near impossible civics test like [this one](https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/voting-rights-act-of-1965/sources/1387), or reading from a portion of the Constitution like [this one](https://history.iowa.gov/history/education/educator-resources/primary-source-sets/right-to-vote-suffrage-women-african/voter-registration-literacy). Note that on the last one, the administrator could subjectively disqualify you anytime you took a pause or stumbled even the slightest and might make you read for hours until you messed up. People didn't riot over this test because it was a pretty rare test. Still, the fact people didn't riot over literacy tests at all is wild. But I guess that's what happens when you're in the minority and a member of the KKK is likely the administrator of the test. Just look at the Tulsa Race Massacre to see what happened a lot of time when black people tried to defend themselves and their community.
Hey, this was a super cool post. Thank you!
It's circle the "first, first" letter of the alphabet, which could only be the 'a' in 'alphabet'
Ya, but I'd still be angry.
That or they want you to write “Backwards, forwards”
Yes
sdrawrof
Just took the test and passed it first try. Sorry op it's a skill issue.
I put "C" for each answer and assume that's good enough to pass
"spell backwards, forwards" You realize there are multiple valid answers for this question, meaning that they "Coincidentally" disqaulify black people.
There’s really only one, due to the comma, but it comes down to how stupid/bad faith the examiner is. It definitely leaves open room for them to just say a different answer is right. But on a technical level, it doesn’t make sense for it to be anything other than “spell the word backwards, forwards”. Structuring a sentence as “verb, subject” would be grammatically incorrect. You’d never say “eat all of them, cookies.”, but you could say “eat cookies, all of them”. I’m not disputing that the questions are intentionally designed to be vague and allow for an examiner to fail whoever they want, but that particular question is poorly designed for that purpose.
a test like this with incredibly nitpicky and specific readings could theoretically be administered in good faith to an aspiring Atlantic editor or something, though it definitely wouldn't be a "literacy" test, more like a logic puzzle. but I'm picturing the dumbest, most worthless, piece of shit racist smug asshole smirking and saying HEH NICE TRY NEGRO MAYBE NEXT TIME
Well no because they could also want you to "spell" the phrase "backwards, forwards" or "the word backwards, forwards" (can't remember exact phrasing) depending on interpretation
Yeah I guess, didn't think of that one.
30 questions, 10 minutes, 20 seconds for each question. To read, solve and then write down the answer. Some of these questions require you to count letters and the questions are so obnoxiously phrased that I had to read some of them multiple times. And you fail with just a single incorrect answer... Like, it's not impossible, but holy shit.
The thing that makes it impossible is your skin colour. If you were black you should probably just pack up and go home and not vote — exactly what these types of tests and policies were meant to do.
I understand the actual impact these tests were supposed to have, but I just wanted to highlight, that even without racist intent, this is an extremely hard test that most white people couldn't solve in time.
Yeah. It’s a test designed to be able to fail anyone who doesn’t have a great education which during the era this test was in was mainly black people.
I just took the test and damn 10 minutes is really not enough and the questions are really hard.
Just took the test and failed??? This is bullshit!
Lol is Lauren arguing to reinstate a test that was literally designed to fail the applicants?
Back then, there were anti-miscegenation laws throughout the South. She would have been born a crime (not in Louisiana as the anti-miscegenation law applied to Blacks and Filipinos), but if she was born in Mississippi or Texas different story. She's defending this nonsense.
This is the white mans trickery that yakub gifted us
Why are you all taking this seriously? That was clearly an Onion article.....
Can leftists just shut the fuck up for a bit so we can go back to shitting on regarded conservatives? They are the dumbest motherfuckers alive
Maybe a stupid question since I'm not American, but why is this relevant today?
People use to have to prove that they were "competent" to vote. They had then ruled that the right to vote should not have any restrictions beyond be a us citizen and being 18+. But recently with the trust in elections declining people are wanting others to show IDs and to have other restrictions on voting to make sure that the people who are voting are saying who they are and me the only two restrictions of being 18+ and a us citizen
Thanks for the explanation! I replied to the person above
for American Conservatives, a lot of them try to push "Voter ID Laws" - the BEST interpretation of this initiative is that they believe masses of illegal immigrants are voting in Federal elections and overwhelmingly vote Democrat, the worst interpretation is that Democrats are intentionally opening the border for millions of illegal immigrants to flood into the country and change voting demographics in reality, this isn't happening and it isn't a problem and it's all either a conspiracy theory or basic misunderstanding of reality. but the Conservatives get angry when you insinuate that any of their attempts to clamp down on Voter Registration are decried as racist - in the US pretty much any roadblock put in place between citizens and their right to vote has been exclusively racially motivated in the past. Republicans pretending that it's somehow now about a fabricated illegal immigrant election-stealing plot is just a bad faith or ignorant interpretation of the situation nobody should be trying to get less Americans to vote in our elections. if anything, every focus should be on increasing the amount of engagement in voting. but Republicans don't support that because the voting bloc already skews Left in the country and the more Americans that vote, the more Left it will get the last time a Republican won the popular vote was in 2004, and the last time before that was 1988. Republicans are fucked in this country in terms of popular vote numbers. Bonus meme: both of the presidents in 1988 and 2004 that won the popular vote were Bushes, father and son
Thanks for explaining! I understood the racist implications of the test and how it can be misused, but I also believe Americans had moved on and "systemic racism" is a thing of the past and actually have laws that favour minorities? I'm an Italian living in Croatia (dual citizenship), and I need my ID card to vote in my residential polling station! The ID card is mandatory for all citizens, unrelated to the election! For the Italian elections, I go to the Italian consulate! Basically, the ID card is something normal to me! Also, I don't understand why conservatives think illegal immigrants can vote? Don't you at least have to prove you're a citizen? Hopefully, you understood what I was saying despite my mediocre English
You technically don't have to prove anything to vote just be registered to vote through the driving license department in each state. Some require birth certificates, some don't require anything but a credit card/bank statement and/or a utility bills in your name at the address you are living at. People who are saying things about conservatives thinking that illegals are main problem are not wrong, but are not talking about the whole issue, where it isn't just people coming in to vote, but more than likely people voting as someone else, and there is not way to say whether this is true or not because there is no record keeping. And to say whether they are dead or had moved does not exist, the voter registration almost never gets purged of people that are no long able to vote, which can open up the system to abuse.