>Roughly the 15% of people have IQs below 85, making them effectively mentally retarded. And beyond that, a huge number of people are grossly uninformed about contemporary political issues, history, science, etc. The best contribution that some folks can make to the democratic process is not participating in the democratic process.
You're thinking of the role of democracy as a way to solve problems, but it also plays a role in fairly allocating resources between sectors of society. The IQ < 85 demographic might not seem valuable to the IQ > 115 demographic, but in fact that is why they need to vote, to counterbalance the self-interest of the IQ > 115 demographic. Likewise, PhDs in political science might be prone to think that highschool dropouts are not valuable contributors, but that is exactly why highschool dropouts need to vote - to counterbalance the will of the political science PhDs to support policies that only help PhDs.
The paternalistic argument is that the low-IQ voters will be misled, and vote _against_ their own interests. That they just will vote for whatever higher-IQ group can best market to them, and will get a basket of outcomes that is, at best, indifferent to their specific needs. This argument is very dismissive the agency of these individuals.
I would argue that largely happens today, but not on the basis of IQ. Large chunks of western countries believe all sorts of (what I would consider) crazy things. And IQ isn't the driving force of belief here.
None of this is an argument to disenfranchise segments of the populace. But it is also increasingly naive to believe that voters vote on the basis of rational self-interest, and we need to have serious discussions about how to counter the forces that drive that, be it IQ, misinformation, in-group/out-group dynamics and more.
You're thinking of the role of democracy as a way to solve problems, but it also plays a role in fairly allocating resources between sectors of society. The IQ < 85 demographic might not seem valuable to the IQ > 115 demographic, but in fact that is why they need to vote, to counterbalance the self-interest of the IQ > 115 demographic. Likewise, PhDs in political science might be prone to think that highschool dropouts are not valuable contributors, but that is exactly why highschool dropouts need to vote - to counterbalance the will of the political science PhDs to support policies that only help PhDs.