Quote:
I also think that most people who don't think of voting as something meaningful usually stay home on voting day.

Precisely. Voter turnout in the U.S. sucks. Economists point out that it's not terribly rational to go wait in a long line to cast a vote that, in all likelihood, will not have a meaningful impact on the election.

Personally, I prefer the system in Brazil, among other countries, where voting is mandatory, with assorted non-trivial penalties if you fail to vote. You do that, and you'd have much better turnout. That won't do anything about the idiots who blindly vote for massive idiots, but once you start trying to define who's elgible to vote in any terms other than "citizen" vs. "non-citizen", then you're on a very slippery slope, and you don't want to go where that slope leads. Instead, what you might prefer is a more long-term solution of the sort that's normally associated with the liberal tree-hugging crowd: decent, well-rounded education from intelligent teachers, with adequate resources to do a proper job.