[Foundation-l] Voting suffrage criteria (established members should be able to vote)

Tue Jun 24 05:18:59 UTC 2008

Nathan wrote:
> Ant makes a good point - one way to get around all these technical
> requirements is to have people vote as people, not accounts, and membership
> is one way to do that. Even if there are legal or other reasons to not have
> membership specifically, it is still possible to develop a real person voter
> roll. Obviously it raises the bar for voters - while they wouldn't need to
> be disclosed to the public, they would need to disclose in some material way
> to the Foundation. That's a bit more of a hurdle than an hour with Huggle
> (you guys who mention AWB are missing the boat these days), but it isn't
> undoable and its not obviously unreasonable to ask people to register to
> vote with a copy of a legal ID. Still open to gaming, of course, but
> seemingly less so and no more vulnerable than most other elections.
>   
Under Florida law, a membership list does have to be available to other 
members, which has been pointed out as a concern in the past. I wasn't 
involved in the decision to remove membership from the bylaws. I like 
the chapter model, though, as a way to provide an extra layer of 
shielding for privacy while still indicating commitment to the movement 
based on individual identity. If there are better ways to balance this 
with privacy concerns, I wouldn't mind revisiting direct membership, but 
in the meantime I encourage people to organize and join chapters.

--Michael Snow