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[MetalSlimeHunt]

Yes, that's the idea. The literacy test isn't hard, it's impossible by design. Several of the questions are paradoxes, allowing the voter registrar to pick the other solution or disqualify them for using more than one answer. And you have to do all thirty questions in ten minutes.

This is where the term "grandfather clause" comes from: the excuse being that we need to have educated, informed voters, but if your grandfather was educated enough to vote then clearly so were you. The grandfathers of black people being slaves or children of slaves, they where oh-so-coincidentally exempt from this.

There was another way of doing it that even managed to dodge the grandfather clause though, which was recitation tests. They'd give everybody parts of the state or US Constitution, and tell them to recite it. The registrar would judge if it had been recited correctly, and if it had, you could vote. Of course, the registrar also chose the excerpt used, and so white people would get a single sentence and black people would get a legalese-ridden paragraph and then be disqualified for their accent even if they made it through.

I've also heard tales along the lines of the "literacy" test being to recite the entire US Constitution from memory, which then ran into problems when one determined fellow actually did it.

So if you ever wonder why I get rather pointed when people start talking about the idea of a voter competency test, this is why.

[nogoodnames]

I found a literacy test from 1960s Louisiana today. For the unaware, these things were designed to keep Southern black people (who often could not afford to have their kids educated) from voting between the end of the American Civil War and the era of civil rights.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Usually, any questions that the test-taker got correct would have an alternative answer claimed as the correct one; #3, for example, could be either "cross out 'longest'" or "cross out 'the longest word in this line'", and answers to #20 could be anything from "backwards" to "backwards, forwards" to "sdrawrof". Anything with one clear answer is deliberately worded to be excessively confusing and verbose in order to waste the test-taker's time.

To add insult to injury, when white people took the test, the administrators would often deliberately overlook mistakes, let them cheat, or give them the answers outright.

Jesus, that "Paris in the the spring" triangle. They didn't even try to hide how they were screwing people over.

[Draignean]

Literacy, now apparently defined as the ability to see through illusions.

[Dunamisdeos]

Don't know why anyone would be on board with voter "competency" checks. Can't even trust these people to make standardized education tests that aren't fraught with errors.

I can understand people's feelings on things like ID checks (which have their own set of problems) but competency checks seem like no one anywhere should like it.

[overseer05-15]

The Warlock of Firetop Mountain has an achievement that is an Undertale meme. Why.

[Trekkin]

Don't know why anyone would be on board with voter "competency" checks. Can't even trust these people to make standardized education tests that aren't fraught with errors.

I can understand people's feelings on things like ID checks (which have their own set of problems) but competency checks seem like no one anywhere should like it.

It's the logical extension of all the people bemoaning the average intelligence of the American voter; people naturally don't want their votes "erased" by someone voting randomly or based on which candidate has nicer hair, and so they attempt to disenfranchise everyone who they don't see as deserving democracy.

So mostly racism, tender misanthropy, and delusions of grandeur.

[Arcvasti]

The Warlock of Firetop Mountain has an achievement that is an Undertale meme. Why.

My WTF is that those old CYOA books made it onto Steam in the first place.

[Rolan7]

I assumed/hoped it was a following up old thing called just "Firetop Mountain", a play-by-email tactical spellcasting game I always found really interesting.  I am pleasantly surprised it seems to still be around, though...  I guess it wouldn't benefit that much from a modern reimagining.  Though I want one anyway
http://www.gamerz.net/fm/Main/

[Sirus]

I found a literacy test from 1960s Louisiana today. For the unaware, these things were designed to keep Southern black people (who often could not afford to have their kids educated) from voting between the end of the American Civil War and the era of civil rights.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Usually, any questions that the test-taker got correct would have an alternative answer claimed as the correct one; #3, for example, could be either "cross out 'longest'" or "cross out 'the longest word in this line'", and answers to #20 could be anything from "backwards" to "backwards, forwards" to "sdrawrof". Anything with one clear answer is deliberately worded to be excessively confusing and verbose in order to waste the test-taker's time.

To add insult to injury, when white people took the test, the administrators would often deliberately overlook mistakes, let them cheat, or give them the answers outright.

Jesus, that "Paris in the the spring" triangle. They didn't even try to hide how they were screwing people over.

Thaaaaaat one took me a minute. It wasn't until I tried writing it out myself, then went back to re-read the text, that I figured out the "trick" to it.

Sneaky bastads.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Don't know why anyone would be on board with voter "competency" checks. Can't even trust these people to make standardized education tests that aren't fraught with errors.

I can understand people's feelings on things like ID checks (which have their own set of problems) but competency checks seem like no one anywhere should like it.

It's a part of the suppressed technocratic feel that some internet nerds feel the need to peddle, with all the associated elitism and bigotry. You also see this in people calling for eugenics or increased requirements to hold citizenship or political office. No, not their ballot, not their testicles, because they're valuable people. It's the morons who need to be put in their place, you see.

Fools, the lot of them.

[Dunamisdeos]

Don't know why anyone would be on board with voter "competency" checks. Can't even trust these people to make standardized education tests that aren't fraught with errors.

I can understand people's feelings on things like ID checks (which have their own set of problems) but competency checks seem like no one anywhere should like it.

It's a part of the suppressed technocratic feel that some internet nerds feel the need to peddle, with all the associated elitism and bigotry. You also see this in people calling for eugenics or increased requirements to hold citizenship or political office. No, not their ballot, not their testicles, because they're valuable people. It's the morons who need to be put in their place, you see.

Fools, the lot of them.

I mean, even if someone is the kind of evil SOB that thinks [class/ethnicity/religion] needs to be singled out and kept in their place or whatever it doesn't take much foresight to see what happens when the tables turn in 8 years and those laws are turned on you.

It's a lose/lose even if you discard all pretense of morality.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I think foresight is a rarer trait than you give people credit for. While I grant that "what if we just got rid of the fools" is probably one of those things that teenagers all think of and then rightfully discard later, I've definitely seen people who should know better peddling the technocratic/meritocratic line.

It doesn't help that everybody confuses me with reddit eugenicists whenever I talk about the need for general population control measures, eternal frustration.

[Dunamisdeos]

No let me tell you, I get it. I've had to explain to a number of folks why Trump singling out followers of whatever religion he's on or off about today is a bad thing to institutionalize.

These are people that are also religious and have every reason to not want that. It is frustrating how much of our culture glorifies this shoot first think later garbage. We have a problem with empathy on this half of the continent, methinks.

And here we go bringing the politics thread into what should be a happy place.

[overseer05-15]

The Warlock of Firetop Mountain has an achievement that is an Undertale meme. Why.

My WTF is that those old CYOA books made it onto Steam in the first place.

It's good stuff, though.

[scriver]

So I just saw my avatar on a post I just had posted, and I felt the biggest feeling like somebody else on these forums have used it before me, though I can't remember who.

Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course. It just feels strange that I didn't realise this while finding it on the interwebs and choosing it as my avatar, but needed to see it on the forums for it to hit home.