[Membership] Speaking of verification (and saving money)

[Weisberg <weisberg@texoma.net>]

Here is an exchange I just had off list regarding ICANN's proposed
means of verifying something (though, despite trying for the
purpose of this note I can not define what) for voting purposes.

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> Have you seen AT&T Online <http://www.catalog.att.com/eatt/>?
You can
> sign up for service, pay with a credit card, and view your
statement
> (including specific calls made on your account) online
<http://www.catalog.att.com/eatt/demo/>.
> Why does AT&T do this over the Internet?  Does it save money?
Is it sufficiently veracious?

> Could ICANN conduct its elections with such technology?

The IDNO has a working electronic voting system.  A bit clunky,
but it
works.

I've heard that the ISOC voting mechanism is somewhat expensive to
run
because it involves so much paper.

I know that a lot of places (including Wells Fargo) are pushing
people to
use electronic voting mechanisms to deal with shareholder matters
(especially for things regarding investment trusts, mutual funds,
etc. that
people can buy into.  I know this because they are hounding me by
telephone to do things electronically. ;-)

>  How would online processing affect ICANN's ability to charge a
small membership fee (as some propose)?  Would it change the
amount necessary to "net" a "profit" over the cost of billing and
administration?

When I worked at Wells Fargo Bank (a long time ago, at the dawn of
the
Age of Automatic Teller Machines), the cost to serve an ATM based
transaction was something like $0.50 while the cost of a human
teller based transaction was something like $5.00.