Democracy in Plato

In Plato's dialogue Protagoras, Socrates and the sophist Protagoras discuss whether or not a carpenter (tinker, tailer, sailor or passenger) can be virtuous enough to be a leader. As this is a typical Socratic dialogue, it is hard to see where it is heading. The point is made in this section, that it is impossible to impart political wisdom, yet everyone, no matter what his trade or level of poverty can participate equally in democracy. Although this conclusion will be overturned, at this point it seems to support the notion that if voters are unable to understand and therefore fail to mark their ballots correctly, they should still have a say in elections:

"But when the question is an affair of state, then everybody is free to have a say -- carpenter, tinker, cobbler, sailor, passenger; rich and poor, high and low -- any one who likes gets up, and no one reproaches him, as in the former case, with not having learned, and having no teacher, and yet giving advice; evidently because they are under the impression that this sort of knowledge cannot be taught. And not only is this true of the state, but of individuals; the best and wisest of our citizens are unable to impart their political wisdom to others: as for example, Pericles, the father of these young men, who gave them excellent instruction in all that could be learned from masters, in his own department of politics neither taught them, nor gave them teachers; but they were allowed to wander at their own free will in a sort of hope that they would light upon virtue of their own accord."

Source:
Protagoras

Features on Democracy in Ancient Greece and the Rise of Democracy

Ancient Writers on Democracy

1. Aristotle
2. Thucydides via Pericles' Funeral Oration
3. Plato's Protagoras
4. Aeschines
5. Isocrates
6. Herodotus Compares Democracy With Oligarchy and Monarchy
7. Pseudo-Xenophon