Demographics vs democracy. Should be: Reconciliation of liberal conscience with realpolitik: Was Re: You are Turning Away Outside Members Who Attempt To Register Demographics vs democracy, Diane? The rabid hordes are at the gates! Diane Cabell wrote: > >>I'm curious. Why is ICANN insisting on *mailing* pin numbers to newly > >>registered at-large members? What's the overriding reason (excuse?) that > >>pins can't be emailed? After all, domain administration can be done via > >>email...many sites send out passwords/pins via email and then require > paper > >>authentication later (even places like paypal, which handle money > transfers > >>up to a specified amount before requiring a signature). So why the > >>at-least-several-days hold up in snail mailing out pins? > > Online identities can be spoofed so easily that this is an attempt to > diminish fraudulent registrations by seeking land-based verification of the > existence of the person. Other sites don't care if you register 10 times, > or they may only care that you have a valid credit card or bank account > number. The postal mailing is a step to reduce the ability of one person to > register as 500 voters. Postal mailing also verifies the voter's location > for purposes of the regional candidate elections; only citizens in the North > American region can vote for the NA candidate. > > No system is perfect and this one will not eliminate many types of election > abuse. Having 6 (or 16 or 600) registrations from the same location is > simply a flag to investigate further. > > (....) > > >> > The far bigger problem is ICANN's ability (inability?) to make law > >> > and enforce it. For just one example, what is ICANN's game plan for > >> > preventing widespread voter fraud? When ICANN discovers that > >> > thousands of people around the world are stuffing the ballot box, are > >> > they all going to be thrown into the giant ICANN jail in Marina del > >> > Rey? > > _Anyone_ is entitled to join the At Large; ballot stuffing breaks no rules. > If 5000 members of the IBM Corp. or the city of Beijing want to join, there > is not reason why they can't. Potential imbalance has certainly been a > concern from the beginning, but on what basis could one deny such > registrations? Certainly not on the basis of ethnic origin. > > Diane Cabell > Berkman Center for Internet & Society > Harvard Law School
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