Re: Pay to vote

[Mark Schuldenfrei <schuldy@abel.MATH.HARVARD.EDU>]

Poster: Mark Schuldenfrei <schuldy@abel.MATH.HARVARD.EDU>

Niall Dolphin wrote:
  I would like to know what people would think about a kingdom policy
  of pay to vote.

  When the various baronies take a vote for their next Baron and
  Baroness, some of them offer a part of the official polling to go to
  non-members to get their opinions. In no other non profit
  organization that I know of does this happen.

The important thing to ask yourself, is not "what do other non-profits do",
because we aren't necessarily them.  (And I assure you,hI can cite a few
that act just as you deny.  So what?)

The Baron and Baroness of a local group are partial keys to the success and
happiness of the group, and all its participants.  Not just those that may
or may not pay funds to a California Charity.  If the criteria you have are
the happiness and success of that group (all its participants, whether paid
members or not) that may affect your decision.

Sure, you could stipulate that more paid memberships are a good thing (and
maybe you'd be right, but I'd deny it).  But even if you WERE right, trying
to extract memberships this way has its price, and that price is high.  The
price is exclusion of active folks, for whatever reason.

It's also worth noting that Corpora carefully tap dances around the language
of voting, to specifically allow polling of all folks, or just paid members.
But paid members MUST be polled.  Obviously, the voting by non-membres
mattered to the drafat s of the current version, enough to allow it.

About a year or so ago, the Barony of Carolingia held its first election of
a Baron in close to two decades.  We spent a LOT of time (too much time)
working out polling methods. In the end, we polled everyone, but we checked
the polling results against the membership list from California... there
wasn't much difference in the two populations.

If this lack of difference generalizes well (and who could say) then neither
method is better or worse for results: but I feel that one method is clearly
better for making a happy and cohesive group.  By polling the entire group.

	Tibor
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