But it is a little ironic. If his early life experiences damaged him, then arguably he's 'impaired', he's damaged goods. That suggests that based on his own assertions, he arguably shouldn't be allowed to vote.
I took it he was targeting people impaired in judgement on account of superstition or something rather vaguely imputed to be psychopathic religiosity.
There's a broader point to be made here, one that a few of the louder and more aggressive atheists really need to pay attention to: Just because your earlier experiences with some form of religion have left you embittered, doesn't mean that everything you subsequently say against religion is going to be true, intelligent, persuasive or justifiable, based on your bitterness alone.
That was the discomfort I had with his introductory paragraph. But it did occur to me that there could be objective measures, such as psychological testing, to create a standard for competency. If any of the "religiously impaired judgment" were present, it might be as detectable as, say, clinical psychosis, or even mild psychopathy that would impair the voter's sound mind.
After all, countless people report extremely positive early experiences with religion. That doesn't automatically mean that all of their ideas in favor of religion are therefore going to be true and justifiable.
Just as a great many religious people didn't fall for the jingoism, misogyny, xenophobia, conspiracy theories, lies/denial, anger and deep-seated fears and hatred that Republicans were broadcasting. I think Edward is addressing the subset of voters who opposed Obama out of a sense of racial superiority and/or fear, and a whole set of thinking errors they exhibited that stem from religiosity, vulnerability to programming by Evangelicals, and susceptibility to extremes of superstition, from the Birthers to the Benghazi conspiracy theorists, to their fear of an educated professor launching a takeover by a new illuminati.
All the well-adjusted folks who happen to harbor some deep superstition without the disordered thinking of the Right Wing Fundamentalists would pass any psychological screening with flying colors. I doubt that Edward wants to deny them their voter card.
The bigger issue, almost diametrically opposed to the scenario you mention, is the huge number of messed up people who evidently need psychological treatment. Concerns over their right to vote, in my mind, pale in comparison to their need for intervention.
My view is that the insults and the wacko reactions, like actually bothering to sign a petition to secede (except as a practical joke, without feeling bent) and, of course, the bizarre anger and hatred reflected in the things fundies are posting, is like a general sense of American mental illness on a massive scale. In the past this would be dismissed as politics, because, in the past, the ruling elite were 100% WASPs. Now we know better. The question is, what are we going to do about it? This is what appeals to me most about Edward's proposal. He's suggesting a theoretical plan of action. Although it's highly impractical, it opens a conversation that needs to be resolved in the US, which hangs around our necks like a millstone. This is what we are in actuality kicking down the road. Forget all those falling-sky worries about mounting debt. What's being left for the generations to come are the profits of insanity.
Although voting is the linchpin of government by the people, it's inconceivable that we will ever begin to have a real democracy until we begin to address the problem of mental health as a matter of national interest. And nothing points to the scale and severity of widespread thinking errors and the need for corrective action as the Republican message this election, and the frenzy it stirred among religious psychopaths.
