Infirm, not informed?

Image supplied by: By Adam Zunder

An article published in the Oct. 30 edition of the Toronto Star described the voting experience of 99 year-old Scarborough resident Irene Moore. Moore suffers from partial blindness, deafness and severe memory loss.

However, none of these difficulties prevented her from voting in the recent Toronto municipal election. Moore lives in a long-term care facility that hosted a polling station with officials on hand to aid voters who need assistance through the voting process. Moore was unfamiliar with the candidates in the municipal election. She chose one at random, and cannot remember who she voted for. The Star captured the concern of Moore’s daughter-in-law, who said she’s concerned that Moore may have been manipulated.

While this concern is plausible, the public has to have some faith in the scruples of the average electoral employee. It’s more reasonable to worry about Moore’s ability to make an informed decision than the possibility of a corrupt official.

It’s unsettling that Moore’s impairments may have prevented her from making an informed decision, but it’s a reflection of one of the practical limitations of any electoral system. While individuals should educate themselves as carefully as possible in order to make an informed decision, they aren’t obliged to do so. Many people vote from an uninformed—or mistaken—perspective.

The only practical solution to avoiding uninformed voting would involve some kind of aptitude test, where voters prove their ability to make an informed decision by indicating familiarity with various platform issues.

Not only would such a process be costly and time-consuming, it would also be undemocratic. The Star article includes an interview with a political science professor who stresses that every person has the right to vote, regardless of state of mind. Arbitrarily imposing a maximum age limit on voting would be discriminatory, and run counter to the ideals of a democratic system.

In theory, the votes cast by individuals choosing at random should cancel each other in the final tally.

Ideally, everyone who votes would vote for the candidate or party that most closely matches their beliefs, but this is hardly the reality. The government has a responsibility to make sure that everyone can vote, not that everyone does so “properly”.

All final editorial decisions are made by the Editor(s)-in-Chief and/or the Managing Editor. Authors should not be contacted, targeted, or harassed under any circumstances. If you have any grievances with this article, please direct your comments to journal_editors@ams.queensu.ca.

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