People should know the issues before they vote!

When it comes to voting, I think that it is a duty not a right.  By duty I do not mean that everyone should vote.  I say not everyone, because I think people should be knowledgeable on an issue before being allowed to vote on it.  This is not to say that people should have to become experts on every tiny political issue, but they should have a competent understanding of the basic concept of any issue or the main ideas of a politician.  Perhaps if there were a very simple short quiz or something like that, that everyone had to take before being allowed to vote on an issue.  I'll admit, this probably is not the best or most fair way to go, but we need to promote competency somehow.  I wish that people wouldn't have to be forced to be well-educated on such matters.  I wish that people would take it upon themselves as their duty to know the issues before they vote on them.  Our country is far important to me to let people choose our leaders based upon only physical characteristics, how well they talk, what surveys say, or they just picked one because that was the person running for their party.