Voting: privilege or right?

Whaddya know? Got a theme goin' on here.

A brilliant, conscientious legal student friend o' mine over at the U of T sent me this video of a town hall with Congressman Mike Castle of Delaware, which was interrupted by a woman ranting about her birth certificate and her father's service in WWII. She eventually gets the whole assembly to rise and recite the pledge of allegiance.

A couple of things that caught my eye:

1. She actually gets them all to rise. She is moving people, having an effect. They are listening. This is not the kind of person I would find compelling, and I'm looking for the trick. Where are the mirrors?
   
2. She has quite a few supporters in the audience. Enough that their idiocy carries the day, and they're politically active. If there are an equal number of considerate, coherent citizens in that area, they're apparently the ones staying home!

Sometimes when my conversation gets real good and lubricated, I've been known to float the idea of competence tests for voters. Like a driving license, voters would have to answer some basic questions to determine that they care a little and have some information about what they're doing. I was once asked what kind of questions should go on such a test, and the best answer I have, not having done any serious research, would be the same questions the country would pose to immigrants. It would be something of a democracy-sophocracy hybrid. To be honest, I'm not sure if the video is an argument for or against it.