ethics of deterrence

[gepr]

Story:
Revealed: Trump campaign strategy to deter millions of Black Americans from voting in 2016
https://www.channel4.com/news/revealed-trump-campaign-strategy-to-deter-millions-of-black-americans-from-voting-in-2016

Video:
https://youtu.be/KIf5ELaOjOk

Soooo... ignoring voter "suppression" and focusing on big data and campaign strategy [⛧]. It has seemed reasonable to me, in the past, to consider systems where incompetent or politically ignorant people cannot vote. E.g. if you can't name the 3 branches of government, you shouldn't be able to cast a vote for anyone in those branches. We could consider what Trump's campaign was doing in its targeted ads was in that category. You take some measure (knowing the 3 branches or, say, "too incompetent to know that Trump is the only person who can fix the country") and those that pass are encouraged to vote and those that fail are discouraged from voting. The key difference is in the choice of measure.

Most people (including me) advocate for everyone to vote, regardless of their competence or ignorance, despite it seeming reasonable to think otherwise. But this "deterrence" vs "get out the vote" strategy definitely seems unethical ... and presents the top of a slippery slope argument by which to challenge *all* measures, no matter how appropriate. E.g. maybe we should allow 5 year olds to vote! Why do we think 18 year olds are any better at voting than 5 year olds?

Gah!


[⛧] And ignoring the possible conflation of cause and correlation in the video. It strikes me that the correlation of the low turnout population with the people listed as "deterrence" may *not* strongly indicate the effect of their campaign tactics. But let's just assume their tactics had *some* effect and decreased turnout in that targeted population.

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