Despite the best effort of Byron York — and many others — to conflate a civics test with a poll tax, there is no Bull Conner standing at the doorsteps of the Internet prohibiting Americans from taking a couple of hours out of their lives to learn that we have three branches of government. This development should be celebrated, not muffled with cheap historical analogies.

If we do concede that the average African American or white working-class voter can’t pass such a test, or that such a test will have consequentially disparate outcomes (and I don’t know if any of that’s true), then we have a serious problem. It isn’t a test problem, it’s a knowledge problem. In this golden age of information, 32 percent of Americans can’t identify the Supreme Court as one of the three branches of the federal government, yet we’re advocating they Rock the Vote. It’s irresponsible.

It was amusing, however, to see liberals argue that nothing should ever inhibit an American from exercising his constitutional rights. Now, of course, many of them have no reservations about inhibiting gun ownership or demanding political groups register with the IRS and meet a whole list of demands before practicing their right of free expression. But advocating for a simple civics test — that you can take as many times as necessary — is tantamount to a military junta.