[Foundation-l] Open question from an Election Official: on voters' elibiglity

Sat Aug 26 03:12:42 UTC 2006

Jeffrey V. Merkey wrote:

>In America, only convicted felons loose the right to vote, and only in 
>certain states. People on probation have the right to vote, and people 
>from every social class and range of offenses have the right to vote 
>(except for convicted felons). No "Concensus" of citizens can strip from 
>any individual the right to vote in this country. This is because we are 
>an "enlightened society", not the forum of the Roman Senate where 
>splinter groups assassinate the emperor and and citizen or senator with 
>views we don't like, or the Court of Queen Elizabet in the 1500's where 
>you could loose your head for wearing the wrong color clothes on the 
>wrong day or criticize the queen. I thank God America doesn't run this 
>way, or most countries in modern times (except for a few in the middle 
>eastern countries).
>
But even the United States has a minimum voting age, and a waiting 
period before new immigrants can become citizens.  I appreciate your 
scare quotes around "enlightened society".  I'm sure that a modern 
Senate and its parties have more sophisticated ways of performing 
political assassinations without getting into the very messy business of 
physical assassinations.  America runs this way when it's running other 
countries.  The last democratically elected ruler of Iran was 
assasinated by the Americans.

>Banned users from the 
>whole of Wikimedia should not vote. Banned users from a particular 
>project should vtoe just not on that project. This isn't an article for 
>deletion, it's board members for the community. All the communities 
>should vote. 
>
Single sign-on will make the process easier.  All individuals, rather 
than all communities should vote.

Ec