We’ve all heard at least one complaint about the “unfairness” of our most recent federal election. But when we compare the voting process today to the voting process fifty years ago in racially segregated America, our democracy suddenly seems much more free and equal. But how exactly was this old voting process “unfair”? Look no further than the “voting qualification literacy test” given to citizens in Louisiana. Are you ready to try it out?
Question #1
- If you wrote “right”, you’re wrong! You should have written “right from the left to the right as you see it spelled here”.
- If you wrote “right from the left to the right as you see it spelled here”, you’re also wrong! In this case, you should have written “right”, with the letters from left to right.
- If you didn’t join your letters, you’re wrong. You printed , but the question said to write , with joined letters.
Question #2
- If you wrote “backwards”, you’re wrong, because the question indicates to spell “forwards” backwards. You should have written “sdrawrof”.
- You’re also wrong if you spelled “forwards” backwards, because the question could be asking to spell “backwards” forwards!
Question #3
- Did you write “q”? Although that’s the second letter of the fourth word on the page, the second letter of the phrase “the fourth word” is actually “h”.
- What if you did write “h”? That would also be wrong, because this letter could be the second letter of the fourth word of the entire line, which would be “q”. It could also be the second letter of the fourth word of the entire test.
Question #4
- There’s an obvious trick inside the triangle here, where the word “the” is repeated twice. If you missed writing that on the line, you’re wrong.
- You also shouldn’t have used unjoined letters, because “writing” refers to using cursive.
- However, if you accurately wrote down what was in the triangle, you should have written down “what you read in the triangle below”.
- If you did write “what you read in the triangle below”, you should’ve written the words in the triangle!
As you can see, all of these questions are insanely obscure, so the marker could mark any answer as “right” or “wrong” for any reason. To make matters worse, one wrong question immediately resulted in a fail. The marking process eventually boiled down to passing only white Americans and failing all other ethnic groups. Our democracy may have been flawed in October, but it’s nowhere near as bad as a democracy where voting qualification tests were designed for certain people to fail!