Too many voters

    There's too much voting going on out there.
    Most politicians and pundits, if they comment on voter turnout, hope for a large one, or bemoan low voter turnout. I maintain there are too many voters already – at least too many voters who haven't a clue.
    Our Founding Fathers knew that the future of the Republic was far too fragile to be left in the hands of just anybody. Voting was restricted to landowners. The assumption was that landowners would be men of means and some intelligence, and would likely be community leaders. The founders were deeply suspicious of pure democracy, which they feared would descend into chaos. That is why they wisely fashioned a constitutional republic.
    Historically, it has been left up to the states to determine, within certain bounds, who may vote and who may not. However, democratic urgings led to extending voting rights to more and more segments of society – not necessarily a good thing, if the voters don't know anything about the U.S. Constitution.
    I know what I'm advocating is heresy. If you even hint that you want to limit voting rights, the immediate reaction is: You're a racist. And with good cause: For decades, before and after the Civil War, whites, especially in the South, sought through devious techniques (poll tax, tests, etc.) to deny voting rights to blacks.
    Even today, there is a knee-jerk reaction to attempts to require voter identification. Asking voters to prove who they are is considered a new form of racism. You need a photo ID to drive a car or check out a book from a library, but you don't need one to vote? To maintain trust in the Republic, citizens need to know that elections are free from fraud.
    But beyond proving who you are, I think voters should need to prove that they know something about the country they live in and the political system that governs it. Otherwise, what are they voting for?
    My wife is a naturalized American citizen. In order to become an American citizen, she had to study materials provided by the federal government. It was a strict, but not an onerous requirement. Any elementary school student could pass the test. Why shouldn't voters be required to take a similar course, to appreciate and understand their form of government?
    In order to get a driver's license, applicants must pass a test of the rules of the road. Would you want people driving dangerous machines at highway speeds who knew nothing about what they were doing?
    The vote is more crucial, and potentially more dangerous to the fabric of the country, than a driver's license.