I am going to react on you underlying opinion/question as I understand it. If I am not mistaken the reason for this question is that you think there are people who should not be allowed to vote. Am I correct?

I often think that the world is infested with idiots. For example, in the Netherlands we have the PVV. This stands for "Partij van de Vrijheid" or "Party for Freedom". Geert Wilders is the party leader, you might have heard of him. I am no fan of this party as it employs populist tactics and quite frankly undermines the foundation of this country. The spear points are simple:

- Muslims are evil and are to blame for everything

- If it cannot be pinned on muslims, the EU is at fault (affectionately referred to as Brussels)

- Also, East-Europeans will come and take all our jobs

Sounds stupid? I agree and I think that the people voting for the PVV are idiots.

Where is this going you ask? Well, I (and others with me) think that those who vote for this party cannot be other than idiots. Populistic crap, worth nothing. However, it is about 10% of the voting population who voted for the PVV in the last election. Strange? Not really. Irritating? Hell yeah.

The problem however is that I cannot judge these people. They might think that those voting for another party are idiots in their own right. It is all about opinions and while there are better researched opinions, there is no reason why people cannot arrive at the conclusion that they agree with (in my opinion) stupid ideas. Testing or otherwise trying to asses the political knowledge of these people will not do the situation any good as this will let them feel excluded from society as a whole. Excluding large portions of society will have a negative influence on society (as seen multiple times in history).

Also, as others have said, it should not be required to first prove you know the basics of politics. It undermines the basic principles of democracy. (just like it is weird you have to register to vote, but that is for another time).

All in all, I think that it is better to tolerate this while it lasts and try to educate people in schools about the basics of politics. It is the best possible thing to do.