I know this will never work, and in reality shouldn't, but I'm out of ideas. 

The problem is, what this country needs is a little more intelligence.  Like Tommy Lee Jones said in Men in Black - "A person is smart.  PEOPLE are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it."  How about this - voting based on IQ score. Very simple. The hard part would be developing an accepted standard. Once that's done, take your IQ, and divide your score by 100. That's how many votes you get. Someone with an IQ of 160 would get 1.6 votes, and someone with an IQ of 90 would get .9 votes. No more bitching about butterfly ballots, no more hanging chads. 

Yes, this is elitist. But so is capitalism, and our entire society is built on that. It is not, however, racist, sexist, or any other form of discrimination. It would be strictly based on merit, the way we SAY we want our schools and businesses to be. For what possible reason would you give the same value to the opinions of someone who barely understands how to mop that you would a genius?  To preserve their self esteem? Society doesn't work this way - otherwise Janitors could charge $200 an hour for their cleaning advice the way a psychiatrist does for medical advice.  If you didn't pay it, you'd be a bad person for hurting their feelings and not paying them what they're worth.  Everyone's opinion does NOT carry the same weight in business, church, society, whatever.  Accept it and let's move forward.

Think of it - political ads preying on ignorance and stupidity wouldn't work as well, lobbying based on fear and blind religious allegiance wouldn't work as well, none of the scare tactics used on the ignorant masses would have the same impact. This is what we had in mind when we decided on a representative form of government rather than a pure democracy. If pure democracy worked, ranchers would let sheep herd themselves. Likewise, if Joe Sixpack made policy decisions, this country would not be the superpower it is. It would be the World Wrestling States of America, brought to you by Nascar.

Are average Americans stupid?  No.  But we should recognize that some folks are more qualified to make decisions than others.  In fact, since only 30% of the population votes anyway, my theory may be overkill.  I'll tell you this, though.  If I ever run for public office, I'll definitely cater to the "smart vote".  Not that I wouldn't want the rest, but you'll never see me crawling out of a race car at a campaign stop. 

Can anyone tell me why this wouldn't improve the country?  I know it will never happen, and in reality, probably shouldn't, but it's something to think about.  People would call anyone who proposed it worse than Hitler. Minority groups would be "shocked and appalled". Lawmakers, industry leaders, and lobbyists have to depend on the ignorance of the average American when making their decisions, and they know that being judged on their merit and performance alone would be much more difficult than keeping the public dumb, fat, and scared.  It's a lot easier to herd cows than lions, so they have a vested interest in keeping the crowd in their place.

Mooooo.