OPINION: We need to teach, not restrain our voting population

He was referring to young voters who do are “ignorant” of public affairs. Many of them could not identify a portrait of the vice president or other public officials. Some did not know how many states make up the union or the difference between the Senate and the House of Representatives.

Many of the Internet commentators agreed with Stossel. Some suggested that the voting age should be raised. Others thought some kind of test ought to be given before a person could qualify as a voter. Well, both of those suggestions were in effect at one time.

Georgia was the first state to lower the voting age from 21 to 18. The argument was that if you were old enough to join the Army, you were old enough to vote. But Georgia also once had a literacy test for voter applicants. But there was a trick to it. The Board of Registers was free to decide who had to take the test and who could register without it.

A few weeks before graduation, the Madison County High School class of 1958 was loaded on buses and driven over to the Registration office to register to vote. We were all 18, or would be before the next election. We were not required to take the test. As high school seniors, we were deemed to be eligible without it, and we were white.

You see, the literacy test was actually used to prevent most of our black citizens from qualifying to vote. And that was true in most Southern states. We still had segregated education in the South and the black schools were under funded with poorly trained teachers and inadequate text books.
The “separate but equal” policy helped some. Madison County opened two new high schools in the fall of 1955; Madison County High School in Danielsville was for whites. Southside High School between Comer and Colbert was for blacks.

I do not know if the senior class of Southside High was taken to Danielsville to register to vote. If they were, nothing was said about it.

Finally, the voting rights act of 1965 outlawed literacy test throughout the nation. The Civil Rights movement organized extensive voter registration drives in the black communities. Federally controlled redistricting plans created a number of political districts with a majority black population, and black elected officials began to appear throughout the South.

But the problem of voters who do not know enough to cast a reasoned vote remains a problem, and as many white voters as black fall into that category. In my opinion, raising the voting age or reinstating the literacy test are not the answer. The responsibility for producing knowledgeable voters belongs to the schools, parents and the media, and we all come up short in our responsibility to our young voters.

Voter registration drives are important. Voter education drives are even more important. We need to teach, not restrain our voting population.

Frank Gillispie is founder of The Madison County Journal. His e-mail address is frank@frankgillispie.com. His website can be accessed at http://www.frankgillispie.com/gillispieonline.