I would bet money that either that test was not really the test or that it was not typical.
The OldPossum took the Alabama literacy test in 1964. It was not anything like this. Basically, it involved reading short passages, mostly from the Constitution, and answering simple questions based upon what had been read.
If you could not pass this test you were too dumb to go into a voting booth.
I think it was a good thing and I think it ought to be brought back.
Easy test, but tedious and irrelevant to what passing allows you to do.
Much better would be a test covering the Constitution, Bill of Rights, American history, state versions thereof, and current events.
...but Leftists would object, deeming it “impossible”.
What does this mean? It doesn't make sense without quotes around the word "right".
I think the racist morons who concocted this test were barely literate themselves.
back when democrats ruled every statewide office...
I failed. No soup for me!
I don’t think testing is necessary, but I sure would love for everyone to take a philosophy or critical thinking class before voting.
And if any state was doing this today, it would still be wrong. But there are no states doing this so I don’t understand what the concern is. Maybe someone could clue me in...
Literate or not, most people are uninformed or misinformed. Check out the Zimmerman trial threads for examples, trivial perhaps, but telling.
Yes, it’s easy, but........
I’m willing to bet that a third of today’s voters would not be able to pass this within the maximum of 10 minutes.
#23 “Draw a shape that is square and then divide it in half by drawing a line from the northeast corner to the southeast corner and then divide it again by drawing another line from the western to the eastern edge.” Huh? Are we talking about IMAGINARY compass points, or does your answer depend upon your actual location in a room?
I don’t know if they still do it, but at one point Scientologists invited people off the street to come to their offices and take free IQ tests. We could hire the Scientology organization to test the IQ of voters before they were allowed to vote. Scientologists would probably agree to do it for free, at it would drum up business for them. What better example of government - private industry cooperation for the good of the nation!
Interesting ‘Test’ this. Hmm.
My mother, a New York City resident born in 1907, had to take a literacy test to vote. Based on what were seeing come out of our schools it’s probably a good idea.
Disenfranchised? An interesting concept. The voters of Communist countries were never “disenfranchised”, and the voter turnout there was (is) 99% or so, with no voter fraud as we observe here, and yes, with some choices on the ballots. So what do we gain by allowing those previously “disenfranchised” voters elect the likes of Alcee Hastings? And if he were merely an exception!
Terrific.
There was a joke many years ago that an Alabama registrar hands a Black guy a Chinese newspaper and asks him to read the headlines.
The Black guy replies. “It says there aren’t gonna be any Black guys voting in Alabama.”
“So far, so good. Now sing “I Want To Hold Your Hand”........the German version backwards.”
Harder for a conservative group to get tax-exempt status from the IRS these days - but of course there’s nothing worth getting the DOJ involved there.....
What a lot of people don’t know is the reason for those Jim Crow laws.
After the war, Southern Whites were totally disenfranchised and the Black governments supported by the Radical Republicans who were some of the worst vermin ever to live, wanted to and succeeded in punishing the South.
They will tell you in modern history books just how enlightened they were but the truth is they and their Northern Carpetbag controllers stole money by the barrel. They would vote huge bonds and then steal the money.
Some Southern States did not completely pay off those bonds until the 1960s.
They had seen what Black rule meant and they never wanted to see it again and they did their best to make it so.
It was a time of Black troops murdering, raping, stealing and basically doing anything they wanted to Whites. The outrages finally got so bad and Southern people literally begged the Union general in charge to do something. He finally did withdraw the Black troops. This was in Georgia but the rest of the South was similar. I know it because I researched original documents while doing ancestor research.
It frankly reminds me of the movie “Birth of a Nation” which now is reviled as racist. In fact it was very accurate from what I have studied.