I'm still in informal talks with Manus Financial (Midas Commons), Ponzi Corrleone (new citizen and mortgager), Zeus Zeitkin of Job Finder Inc (you can hear him on Phillip's townhall podcast), and Rak, the owner of the Democrat. You don't see these guys around much because they are running full time businesses elsewhere. It'd be great to have them own large CDS HQs but barring that, the franchulate bill may serve them.
These are all citizens or soon to be citizens who want something beyond the "trust me" business model. They value (highly) a working dispute resolution system. That was the thinking behind my failed commercial license bill. They hesistate, not because the microplot bill was unsuccessful as written, but more because the Judiciary has not proven itself yet (one case only).
By the way I don't feel I either violated the spirit nor letter of the law nor did I act in any way unethically. I represent business interest constituents in the NFS.
Down to the mechanics of "gaming the system":
So as far as electoral manipulation goes, what's the magic number? Ranma, I believe wanted 128m2. If we go with the equivalent minimum, USD that's something like:
$4.29 to become a citizen + $1.11 a month to stay a citizen
[list:3htiaoe3]Now you can still buy votes, it's just more expensive. It's not a matter of recruiting people because in theory these could be alts.
You can also do "no new citizen voting rights 30 days prior to election" to avoid last minute "bussing in" as it were.
The last thing I can think of is to also require verified accounts for citizens.
RL identity disclosure may solve this but then opens up the RL anonymity can of worms. I'd like to avoid that.[/list:u:3htiaoe3]
Keep in mind, the higher you raise the bar, the fewer somewhat apathetic and uncommitted citizens you get. Maybe that's a good thing, as it'd screen out those who don't have strong ties to the CDS. Just don't make it financially out of reach. I'd like to see something like this to make it difficult to rig elections.
Apparently I've set off a bit of a controversy. Well, I guess we'll have to leave bribing the Judiciary and other goodies until later.