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