I imagine most people who are in favor of this are working under the assumption that their votes would count more, when in practice they would probably count less.

I would be in favor of a no representation without taxation reform, though. Hell, I'd gladly forfeit my right to cast a statistically meaningless vote in exchange for the right to keep all my money.

to expand..

..no matter how intelligent or whatever a person is the one thing you can count on is for people to act in their own self interest.  restricting voting rights will only serve to take advantage of those that are deemed unworthy to vote.  i personaly call that kind of govenment not legitiment and morally unexceptable.

I think that would be a fantastic idea, where people would forfeit their right to vote if they get to keep all their money and not be taxed. I would also then like to add to that law if it was implemented that people who choose to not pay taxes then can not use any infrastructures that are funded by tax dollars since they forfeit paying taxes.

So no roads, no schools,no military, no hospitals since those are all funded by tax dollars. 

That would be a fair trade off, people who want to not pay taxes then can not use infrastructures funded through taxes of people who are willing to pay. 

This is a better thought, though ignores partisan realities (although knowing you, sam, you could be invoking this deliberately ), it would lead to total gridlock, for the next 25 years a permanently democratic house and a permanently Republican senate. 

I was reading a book recently that advocated the elimination of primary elections, actually. Primary voters are non-representative even of the political party as a whole (Republican primary voters more conservative than Republicans, and so on for the Dems). If the decision is left up to party leaders, they pick more marketable (e.g. mainstream) candidates who are less likely to produce gridlock.

Of course, again, if you yourself are outside the political mainstream, you'll see that as a terrible idea.

Yeah, NO. Here's my list.

1. REWRITE THE TAX CODE.

Impose a 35% national sales tax, with every American citizen receiving a $10,000 rebate ($830/ month). This means that if you live for less than $7,000 per year, your life is free, if you make up to $30,000 you live tax free, and your tax rate will never hit 35% no matter how much you make.

2. Single Transferable Vote for all elections.

Seriously. Watch the CGP Gray video on Youtube. This alone would fix America's party problems.

3. Laws and classified material expire after 20 years. Laws can be repassed.

If a law worked, it should repass easily in a rubber-stamp. Democracies live on the people knowing things, though, so renewing classification should be reserved for things of great need.

4. All nationally elected officials should be paid based on the average national income. They should get penalized if income inequality becomes too wide or debt exceeds 35% GDP. They should forfeit all benefits should debt hit 100% GDP.

A little debt is healthy. 100% GDP means paying the debt back is almost impossible. I want congress to panic if we get close to that, not play "let's shut the government down for a weekend."

5. Laws need to have a due diligence period before they are passed to investigate unintended consequences. The bigger the bill, the longer the due diligence period.

Obamacare is the big recent offender. Apparently they thought McDonalds would love to pay healthcare for 30 hour/ week employees rather than hire more people. The endangered species act is another good example because it incentivizes killing endangered species to protect your land rights. Research what you are doing, you IDIOTS.

If I could pay a la carte for what I actually use or just pay state and local taxes and divorce myself from the federal government, I would probably be okay with that.

the constitution is outdated.. who the hell needs a AK47 to defend their homes?  those rules was written as a protection against england if they was to come back... 

People always respons: it's good to have an assault rifle in case if someone else with an assault rifle attacked your house.

my response to that is: if assault rifles was illegal and hard to get, the more likely it is for them to be attacking your house with a hand gun or a hunting rifle. 

assault rifles on full auto might cause a lot more damage then a rifle with a ingle shot. 

imagin someone walking into a shopping mall and empty an entire clip of 24-30 rounds vs a rifle with 2-10 rounds? it's also easier to reload a assault rifle then a hunting rifle. 

 it's common sense.

guns doesn't kill, people do! but a country full of monsters? it's actually better to limit their options.

usa however does need a overhaul ,knpwing howthings get done and how progress has stagnated cause of incompetency and bipartisanship is sad
large coutries and poorer countries need a strong leader who is feared

Voting rights need to be earned? Ignoring how foolish that idea is. You know how many people would not even bother trying.

To the OP:

1) Turning our system into a voting system like it's American Idol not only would be a terribly inefficient method to do a worse job than the idiots do already, but it's susceptible to being crippled if there are techical difficulties and/or people manipulating the system. I think you're inviting as much or MORE corruption than there already is.

2/3)I'm sorry but by definition a democracy doesn't have many restrictions on who votes or how much say each person has. As far as "earning" the right to vote all people have to do right now is register when they're 18 years old and I would be willing to guess less than half even do that. I don't think you need to worry about a filtering system of voters - people already exclude themselves from the system just fine.