On 20 November 2012 10:37, Katherine Bavage
<katherine.bavage(a)wikimedia.org.uk> wrote:
Morning -
All members are voting members...unless I've missed something?
I think Harry might have been distinguishing between members that do
vote and members that don't, rather than members than *can* vote. Just
like insurance companies only check your details when you try to make
a claim, we could just check when people try to vote.
Yes, the credit checking thing occurred to me but
seemed a little excessive
- plus it would complicate our obligations in terms of possible data
protection (if it was part managed by staff) or I suspect would be really
expensive.
I suppose what we need to demonstrate is that, say 'Joe Bloggs' is a) Is who
he says he is (proof of photo ID) and b) Lives at the address he says he
does (utility bill? Electoral roll?). If people pay from a verified paypal
account the need to check is superseded, because Paypal requires all this
information.
Electoral roll is no good - plenty of people aren't registered to
vote. Utility bills only help if you are the one that pays them.
People that live with their parents, or live in student halls, or
simply have everything in the name of their spouse, aren't going to
have one. I'm not sure Paypal does anything particularly thorough when
it verifies your account, and people tend to only verify their
accounts if they are selling things through paypal.
I suggested a credit scoring agency because it's the only thing I can
really think of that is practical. It will check your details in lots
of different ways, so is likely to be able to find something for
everyone (some minors may have a problem - they would need to have a
bank account in their own name or something in order to be in the
database). I have no idea what it would cost, though.