Re: Pay to vote

[Breyheres@aol.com]

Poster: Breyheres@aol.com

     Greetings unto the Merry Rose from Breyheres Olwen, Baroness of Marinus!

     Boy, Niall, did you ever open up a can of worms with this one!  I've
read the other opinions posted here about this topic, and have to say that I
agree with them.  A polling is not a vote, and shouldn't be considered one.
 It merely provides Their Majesties an opportunity to gather the opinions of
the people who actually live in the area.  Since it's Kingdom custom to send
mailed pollings, and we use the mailing labels from Milpitas to conduct the
polling, then it stands to reason that all the people polled are members.  In
Marinus, we also send pollings to the 6 honourary Marinusians, as long as
they are paid members.

     Membership (or lack thereof) doesn't stop someone from writing a letter
to Their Majesties, expressing their opinion about a polling.  As for polling
the residents of the barony only, (in order to avoid non-residents expressing
their opinions), I have to disagree with that.  Last September, I held an
informal polling among the members of Marinus to gather their opinions about
whether or not I should stay on as Baroness.  The room was filled with people
who are geographically members of Marinus, but very rarely deign to play with
Marinus, or to get involved with the barony at all.  

     I think leaving the polling issue at the current standard (that is,
using mailing labels from Milpitas) is probably the best thing to do.
 Otherwise, we start splitting hairs as to what is an acceptable level of
activity in order to express an opinion.  And that would be an even bigger
can of worms!

In Service,

Olwen
Baroness of Marinus

Argent, a pale rayonne azure, overall a heraldic tyger passant gules.

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