I was speaking to Alan Duval and he had this interesting idea for a 2nd EU Referendum (Ior indeed to remedy the shortcomings of the first if we could rewind), though you could apply the principle to any vote.
His idea was to have 3 questions concerning the EU at the top of the ballot. Perhaps you could start with your vote being worth a single vote (Alan indicated that if you got the questions wrong, your vote would not count, but perhaps we should no completely disenfranchise some voters). The three questions would be neutral, factual questions requiring a minimum knowledge of the EU. Each correct answer would add a vote weighting to the ballot paper. So you could have a final vote worth 3/4 votes. Such a question might be, “what are the three institutions of the EU?” or similar.
This would have meant both campaigns clamouring to educate the electorate far more. Alan told me that he had heard a sizeable proportion of the electorate thought that a “No-Deal Brexit” meant we would be staying in the EU… This lack of knowledge about the very key aspects of leaving the EU is very worrying.
We need minimum knowledge and standards through testing in order to be able to drive, for the way that a lack thereof can affect others. Why not the same approach for the massively important process of voting?
Controversial and possible favouring of democratic elitism, such as with Ancient Greece…