improving education is not "the hard way" it is "the intractibly hard way". People cannot possibly be expected to be informed beyond their local concerns, and yet they have been tricked into voting based on issues that they do not understand or do not affect them.

We have a representative government, which means that the fundamental evaluation a voter must make is whether or not they trust a candidate. Humans are innately very very good at this, and it doesn't require much education to get right. Mostly what it would require is convincing people to vote for the representative that they trust the most, rather than any particular issues, which are likely to be far too dynamical to really evaluate.