The Problem of Low-Information Voters

How informed is the American electorate? The Washington Post takes on the issue:

So a bunch of academics decides to revisit one of the defining books of modern American politics, a 1960 tome on the electorate. They spend years comparing interviews with voting-age Americans from 2000 and 2004 to what Americans said during elections in the 1950s. The academics' question: How much has the American voter changed over the past 50 years?

Their conclusion -- that the voter is pretty much the same dismally ill-informed creature he was back then -- continues a decades-long debate about whether Americans are as clueless as they sound.

Reader, before you send that outraged e-mail, consider that you may be an exception. You, of course, are endlessly fascinated by the debate over domestic wiretapping, but it's possible your neighbors think FISA is a hybrid vehicle. In fact, it's quite possible your neighbors are Republicans only because that's what their parents were, and ditto for the Democrats across the street. They couldn't even mumble a passable definition of "liberal" or "conservative."

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It is my belief that certain portions of the right-wing purposefully foster ignorance in the American voter. They want it, along with voter apathy and low-voter turnout.

I just spoke with a young man yesterday who was not going to vote for Barack Obama because he was told IN CHURCH that Barack was a Muslim. I asked him specifically whether people who attended the church (The Church on the Way in Van Nuys) told him (which would just be conversation), or whether it was something a pastor told him. He said it was something a pastor said, which, if this is true, would be against IRS regulations. (And from the looks of this comment I found on a New York Times story, it appears as though this may be a common occurrence at this particular church.)

But even more critical than the legal ramifications is the fact that churches like these are filling the heads of their parishioners with lies.

These same voters will pull the lever on election day. Sad, very sad.

I spoke with the gentleman and tried to give him some accurate information. I hope that he listened.

And please, people. Do your research. Don't base your vote on what somebody told you or some crazy email FILLED WITH CAPITAL LETTERS spewing garbage like "BARACK OBAMA IS THE ANTICHRIST!!!!!!!!"

Get the facts straight. Our country depends on it.