The Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI) administered a 33 question basic civics test to 2,500 randomly-selected people. Included were some who identified themselves as "elected officials", although the story does not say how many elected officials there were, or what offices they held. The elected officials scored only 44% on the 33-question test, compared to a 49% average score for the rest of the respondents. One of the questions was "name two countries that were our enemies during World War II."
Link -Thanks, Geekazoid!
You can take the test yourself. Link -Thanks, AJ!
Sixty-nine percent of respondents correctly identified Germany and Japan. Among the incorrect answers were Britain, China, Russia, Canada, Mexico and Spain.
Forty percent of respondents, meanwhile, incorrectly believed that the US president has the power to declare war, while 54 percent correctly answered that that power rests with Congress.
Asked about the electoral college, 20 percent of elected officials incorrectly said it was established to "supervise the first televised presidential debates."
In fact, the system of choosing the US president via an indirect electoral college vote dates back some 220 years, to the US Constitution.
Link -Thanks, Geekazoid!
You can take the test yourself. Link -Thanks, AJ!
http://www.americancivicliteracy.org/resources/quiz.aspx
Amazing! As a Canadian who’s been out of school for more than three decades I got the same score.
"You answered 26 out of 33 correctly — 78.79 %
Average score for this quiz during November: 77.6%
Average score: 77.6%"
Conspiracy!
It would be fascinating to me to see how scores break down among liberals and conservatives...
Fiscal Conservative, Social Liberal
Answers to Your Missed Questions:
Question #7 - D. Gettysburg Address
Question #14 - B. stressed the sinfulness of all humanity
Question #17 - D. manmade satellite
Gah, can't believe I missed #14 & #17, went through too fast :P
Not too shabby I guess.
Missed #27.
I missed:
#4, #7, #15, #27, and #33
I felt like a bunch of the economic questions were poorly worded and confusing.
Anyways I don't feel all that bad that the average score was a 49%. While some of the questions were laughably easy, there were a lot of tricky ones out there too. This is coming from a guy who actually studies this stuff in college.
And I'm a Scot.
Neither of the two most important features of the current system of electing the President (namely, that the voters may vote and the winner-take-all rule) are in the U.S. Constitution. Neither was the choice of the Founders when they went back to their states to organize the nation's first presidential election.
In 1789, in the nation's first election, the people had no vote for President in most states, it was necessary to own a substantial amount of property in order to vote, and only 3 states used the winner-take-all rule (awarding all of a state's electoral vote to the candidate who gets the most votes in the state). Since then, as a result of changes in state laws, the people have the right to vote for presidential electors in 100% of the states, there are no property requirements for voting in any state, and the winner-take-all rule is used by 48 of the 50 states.
The normal process of effecting change in the method of electing the President is specified the U.S. Constitution, namely action by the state legislatures. This is how the current system was created, and this is the built-in method that the Constitution provides for making changes.
Every vote would be politically relevant and equal in presidential elections.
The bill would take effect only when enacted, in identical form, by states possessing a majority of the electoral votes—that is, enough electoral votes to elect a President (270 of 538). When the bill comes into effect, all the electoral votes from those states would be awarded to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).
The bill is currently endorsed by 1,181 state legislators — 439 sponsors (in 47 states) and an additional 742 legislators who have cast recorded votes in favor of the bill.
The National Popular Vote bill has passed 21 state legislative chambers, including one house in Arkansas, Colorado, Maine, North Carolina, and Washington, and both houses in California, Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, Maryland, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Vermont. The bill has been enacted by Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, and Maryland. These four states possess 50 electoral votes — 19% of the 270 necessary to bring the law into effect.
See http://www.NationalPopularVote.com
And its been 20 years since I've had a civics class. I am amazed at American ignorance of the basics of our society, and appalled by the reported scores of our elected officials.