Sufficient Political Knowledge

Voters can be ignorant of ideological terms or the Chief Justice's name and still make competent choices in the voting booth. Alternate terms, such as "Democrat" and Republican," or "liked by people I respect" and "disliked by people I respect," can produce the same choices tha voters would have made if they were walking political encyclopedias. Observing that survey respondents answer questions about ideological labels or common political knowledge incorrectly means nothing more, in itself, than that the respondents cannot (instantly) recall terms that political scientists and journalists know well. Broad claims about what such observations tell us about voter competence are of dubious credibility.
--Arthur Lupia, "How Elitism Undermines the Study of Voter Competence", Critical Review Vol. 18, Nos. 1-3, pp. 222-223