Right now it seems impossible to avoid election coverage, yet the average American voter will remain stoically uninformed. These are the voters (29 per cent) who can't name the vice president. These are the voters (44 per cent) who are unable to define the Bill of Rights. These are the voters who have long debates on Twitter over what Obama’s last name is.

But according to a study by Iain Couzin, an ecologist at Princeton, these are also the voters that the safety of the US relies on. General ignorance is in fact one of the keystones of democracy, and we need these people for protection, he says, because uninformed voters act as a buffer against groups of extremists dominating political debate. They help muddy the message of the articulate minority and give the majority breathing space to work out  what they actually want.

Couzin modelled this in fish – a species that needs constantly to make decisions collectively. He chose golden shiners: fish with opinions, for they like the colour yellow. Taking a small group, Couzin whipped up their enthusiasm by training them to swim towards a yellow target for food, creating a super-group of extremist yellow-leaning fish. These fish really, really liked yellow. Couzin then set to work creating a larger group of “moderate voters”. He taught this group to swim against its instincts, getting it to associate a blue target with food.

When all the trained fish were put in one tank, most swam towards the yellow target. The strongly opinionated minority had persuaded the others to follow. Couzin then introduced a group of fish with no training at all. Now all the fish started to move with the wishes of the majority – swimming towards the blue target. The extremists had apparently lost their power.

Couzin suggested that there were lessons here for the democratic process.
In order to move as a coherent group, without splintering, we need not be too persuadable. If voters are switched on and highly informed, they are also volatile, and a vocal and convincing speaker can sway them in a second. Not so if they are burdened with a sluggish trail of the apathetic. Basically, if more of Hitler’s crowd of potential voters had been sitting at home eating doughnuts and playing Words With Friends he may never have got into power. I'm unwilling to take tips from Frankie Boyle here, but the US really needs to start valuing its idiot demographic - it does an important job.