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"Although there are no national statistics, two studies in Pennsylvania and Rhode Island found that patients at dementia clinics turned out in higher numbers than the general population."
And we can take away your coffee, as well!
Then we can disenfranchise people's old grandmothers, tax 'em, and not worry. We disenfranchise some felons -- why not people with actual diagnoses of dementia? Of course, I wouldn't let a third of the people who DRIVE in Florida do so.
Nothing wrong with that, right?
We do have voter competency tests in Florida -- we call them ballots. In Palm Beach there was the butterfly ballot. In Duval County the ballot instructed the voter to vote for one candidate on each page, and then strung close to a dozen candidates for the same office over several pages. To have one's intent register as a vote, one must be smarter than the person who designed the ballot, who is a government official (so the test is not that arduous).
Ralph, we currently tax people under 18 who work.
Voter competency tests?
The article said "experts say there is no way to test voter competence... 'Our voting system does not require intelligent voting or informed voting. The Supreme Court has said the idea of informed voting is too susceptible to abuse.' "
Actually, I don't think the voter participation rates they cite are out of line for their age group which votes at a considerably higher rate than us younger folks.
To be entirely cynical, the dumbing down of the campaigns, and the intense focus on events of 30 years ago, almost makes you think that this was an important swing bloc....
I'm not sure what you propose as an alternative. When I was 13, my grandmother had dimentia. Officers at the polls allowed me to go into the voting booth with her to help her cast her vote. The state did not exempt her from paying income, property, and sales taxes because she had dimentia. If she were disfranchised because she had dimentia, she would be paying taxes without representation. If you exempt her from taxes and disfranchise her because she has dimentia, she soon becomes a non-person in the eyes of the state.