> Feels a little disingenuous to quote this line and not the full section where OP was just asking you to know your local representatives. [...] you have to almost actively not pay attention to not know anything about yours.

Feels disingenuous to ignore the fact that what I said applies to the rest of the comment too, don't you think? If it isn't obvious: typically the first year after a move - likely more, at least until House elections - most people will have zero reason to know their representatives' names, let alone keep remembering it for years. Who ever forgets a name they learned during a campaign a couple years ago, right?

For starters, something like almost ~half of students move away from their families to attend college. And then look at moves for jobs and retirement and everything else. And then when an incumbent leaves, all of their constituents end up in a similar boat as someone who just moved. And I'm not even beginning to touch the fact that a lot of people's unawareness of politics is (spoiler, I know) due to them not having the luxury to be able to devote as much bandwidth to it as HNers do. All these people shouldn't have any political opinions whatsoever until they figure out their representatives because... some wise guy on HN thinks knowing your representative's name is a good litmus test for whether you can tell good from bad? Do you expect any other response than "screw you"?

> I've never called anyone about anything political

Quite a confession given the side you're standing on. You'd think such a model citizen would've at least cared to contact their rep one damn time to suggest something about such a serious issue. Like maybe helping educate people about the government and politics better so they become as enlightened as the others.

If you (and/or parent, whoever feels this way) genuinely want a good outcome for something so serious instead of standing on a high horse and looking down on the uneducated, maybe actually go campaign to put your lovely literacy tests in the constitution, or whatever else would advance your cause forward. If you have some integrity, perhaps also campaign to fund the education system better and make it easier for citizens to vote in the same amendment, so that you're actually helping the people you presumably care about. Until you actually do something meaningful about this, I hope you can understand that your opinions about who should have opinions really won't come across the way you'd presumably hope they do.