> Anyway, folk with low IQ's making bad choices isn't really a problem.
You don't seek out the advice of the mentally retarded when making personal decisions. Why would you do so when determining how to run your society?
> Most of the uniformed, just vote along family lines.
The point of a democratic elections is to get the considered input of the population. People who 'just vote along family lines' are noise in the signal. If they want to, then fine. But why would you force them to contribute their arbitrary, uninformed opinions?
> Anyway, everyone has a right to vote and a duty in some respect.
Of course they do.
> Making it harder for some, by making it opt in, will lead to more problems then having disengaged voters participating in haphazard ways.
This is nonsense. Forcing older kids to go to school doesn't result in more engaged school-kids, it results in rooms full of angry, disengaged kids who cause problems for the people who want to be there. Similarly, forcing people to vote just adds a bunch of random votes to the pile.
Democracy is a great thing. But democracy doesn't work because more human hands touching ballots makes for better government--it works because you can get good advice by asking the input of a large number of responsible, conscientious people.
We know that the least educated among us are the least likely to vote. We also know that IQ predicts academic achievement. So why would you go out of your way to increase the proportion of Prec