Its a duty for someone who has bothered to put some time and education into their choices. Part of that is literacy.
1) No. It's not. It's just not. It's perfectly possible, in this day and age, to be just as informed as an average literate voter without knowing how to read.
2) So long as the primary agent of literacy in our society is the government it is a dangerous conflict of interest, easily exploited, to use literacy as a voting credential. It becomes trivial for a faction of society -- a class, a race, a religion -- to take over the literacy-dispensing government agency of a locale and see to it that no one but their own consistently get sufficient literacy to pass the test, thus ensuring that their own faction out-numbers other factions at the polls. In fact, it can happen so easily accidentally, without malice aforethought, that it's essentially harder to stop it from happening than to cause it to happen.
Which is why the Supreme Court struck down literacy tests. They had been instituted and were being used precisely to filter out voters who didn't belong to the dominant faction.
they should earn it somehow to show they have the responsibilty to use it correctly
I like Heinlein's idea: demonstrate your responsibility to your country by enlisting. Only people who serve in the military earn the right to vote.
Re: before someone is given the privilege
1) No. It's not. It's just not. It's perfectly possible, in this day and age, to be just as informed as an average literate voter without knowing how to read.
2) So long as the primary agent of literacy in our society is the government it is a dangerous conflict of interest, easily exploited, to use literacy as a voting credential. It becomes trivial for a faction of society -- a class, a race, a religion -- to take over the literacy-dispensing government agency of a locale and see to it that no one but their own consistently get sufficient literacy to pass the test, thus ensuring that their own faction out-numbers other factions at the polls. In fact, it can happen so easily accidentally, without malice aforethought, that it's essentially harder to stop it from happening than to cause it to happen.
Which is why the Supreme Court struck down literacy tests. They had been instituted and were being used precisely to filter out voters who didn't belong to the dominant faction.
they should earn it somehow to show they have the responsibilty to use it correctly
I like Heinlein's idea: demonstrate your responsibility to your country by enlisting. Only people who serve in the military earn the right to vote.