On Tue, 01 Aug 2000 15:01:37 CDT, cpart(_at_)interaccess(_dot_)com said:
Start a world wide voter registration campaign. Try to register
every individual (as opposed to corporation) using the internet.
Give them the right to elect 2/3 of the seats on the board.
A good idea, on the surface. However, there's a major stumbling block
here. In the last local election for Congress, the two main contenders
in our district were a fairly long-term incumbent, and another local
who has name recognition from previous community service. People knew,
in general, where each of the two stood on important issues (or could
interpolate based on their political party affiliation).
Such a scheme requires that the people doing the voting have a clue who
they're voting for. Now if you can explain to me how you intend to
educate 25 million AOL users as to who the candidates are, and what they
stand for, maybe we can talk...
Remember in your discussion to include the fact that any US 'equal time'
laws for political parties may or may not be applicable, due to the
fact that many subscribers may not be in the US, or the fact that AOL isn't
a television provider (and thus may not be forced to comply).
I'll overlook the technical aspects of actually *running* an election of
that scale securely. This isn't just Arizona...
You think the 2 years spent so far is long, wait till you see the time it
would take to set THIS up. 2 years will be peanuts.
--
Valdis Kletnieks
Operating Systems Analyst
Virginia Tech
pgpEtxNwqsjlo.pgp
Description: PGP signature