Wednesday, October 20, 2004

How stupid is the American electorate?

Oh, man, you don't really want to know. First, to see the geographic distribution of stupidity, check out the color codes here. I'm thinking we can use this graphic as a pseudo-terror kind of alert: Voter stupidity at dangerous level, going to code red!

It's also amusing to observe that, in the same way that hot air rises, stupidity seems to drift toward the centre of the country (Illinois being a happy exception).

It's worth reading some of the text there as well:

Are the voters stupid? It is not considered politically correct to point out that an awful lot of voters don't have a clue what they are talking about. A recent
poll from Middle Tennessee State University sheds some light on the subject. For example, when asked which candidate wants to roll back the tax cuts for people making over $200,000 a year, a quarter thought it was Bush and a quarter didn't know.

I'm thinking that, maybe the U.S. should have some kind of IQ test to qualify for voting. Nothing hard, maybe something like, "Of the two candidates for president, which one is the Democrat?" Although I suspect I'd be depressed by the results.

The Canadian Cynic. Giving the average American voter as little credit for brains as he can get away with.

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