Right to vote will be linked to literacy in Hungary?
The Mi Hazánk party wants the right to vote to be linked to the ability to read and write, the party’s deputy head said on Monday.
Előd Novák told a press conference that “for parties committing election fraud, it is easiest to buy the votes of those who can’t read or write.”
While Mi Hazánk has no intention of excluding anyone from the elections because of their ethnicity, “this problem may affect Gypsies in Hungary the most”, he said.
The radical party would also take steps against buying votes and bussing voters to ballot stations, among other methods, he said.
The proposal would also ban dual citizens from running for office in Hungary, he said.
Under the proposal, constituents could recall lawmakers and MPs’ immunity would be scrapped.
Further, the president would be elected directly, prime ministerial candidates would have to hold open debates, and all parties would be obligated to write a manifesto, Novák said.
Also, the media authority should be manned by government and opposition delegates in equal numbers, he said.
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That should be the bare minimum but other requirements should be in place also. Owning property or a business, having a job, being a net tax contributor, etc. are just a few of the more obvious conditions that should determine the eligibility of someone to vote in an election, especially federal/national. Universal suffrage, where you get to play a role in deciding the country’s future merely because you’ve been alive for an arbitrary number of years, and still are, is absurd.
The literacy rate in Hungary is 98.68%. Is this proposal going to make any real difference in voting?
@michaelsteiner – in this day and age, fulminating against universal suffrage?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_suffrage
If you are of legal age and bound by the laws of your country of citizenship, you should be able to vote for the bodies that enact and maintain those laws. Or is this somehow unreasonable? Besides – even if you are able to read and write, you can still be pig ignorant!
Lastly – voting being limited to “net contributors” … Should this also apply to EU Members? Especially if net recipients, who do not contribute, currently have a veto right?
@Norbert,
Although i rarely agree on your views, You make some good points here and have to agree. There’s something in the constitution on Federal elections too, i recall, but not certain.
Language proficiency is important to understanding politics and the people. There is absolutely no excuse for anyone to be illiterate in Hungary. The information I gathered is that one writes the same way one speaks with no extraordinary spelling rules. Literacy is not an unusual mandate.
In Canada and the US, all you have to put on the Ballot is an “X”. You dont need to be able to read or write. Hence, a democratically elected body in power.
…A…says: You are right. In Canada all you have to do is put an X next to a name; the voter has to recognize the name. If one analyzes the quality of the elected reps, one’s hair stands up. People of Seattle managed to get the most insane reps; a few years back people actually occupied part of the city, illegally, burned down a police station, closed businesses during the “summer of love” with the approval of the city council.
Both in Canada and the US 50+% of the population is not efficient in literacy. It is a wonder that these countries’ economy still functions.