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If you associate an account at Stackoverflow and such sites to an account at this website, you automatically get 100 reputation and voting abilities and whatnot.

So without putting any mathematical effort whatsoever, a lot of people can become voters in the elections. Not good. So I propose that there should be a certain mechanism, perhaps a higher reputation barrier, for suffrage in the upcoming election.

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    $\begingroup$ All the candidates are from MO and 3 of 4 have similar positions on everything ("toward the left", with Robin Chapman perhaps "centrist" or maybe hard-line on closings and deletions). You raise an important point as the SO population -- even the SO meta readers -- vastly outnumbers math.SE and the current friction with Jeff Atwood could influence the result. However, in end result I think the moderator actions will be similar whichever triple of the current four candidates are elected. If SO candidates appear, the qualification threshold would become far more influential. $\endgroup$ – T.. Dec 8 '10 at 0:46
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    $\begingroup$ Quite simply, these characters should not be admitted with 100 reputation. This is another diktat from the SO hierarchy that damages this site. In general the standard questions from rep 101 new users is poorer than that from rep 1 new users. $\endgroup$ – Robin Chapman Dec 8 '10 at 7:20
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    $\begingroup$ these reputation requirements are documented in meta.math.stackexchange.com/questions/1212/… and on the election page itself at math.stackexchange.com/election (click the appropriate tab: Nominations, Primary, Election). $\endgroup$ – Jeff Atwood Dec 9 '10 at 1:22
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You need 150 reputation to vote in the election, so even with the account association bonus you still need to put in some mathematical effort to make up the difference of 50 rep.

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  • $\begingroup$ Hmm.. .. 50 rep .. Hmm, ok .. :) $\endgroup$ – user1119 Dec 8 '10 at 0:03
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    $\begingroup$ Well, it's still true that the system means that someone who is not coming from another SE site has to contribute three times as much in order to be eligible to vote. In practice, this time, I don't see how this will make any difference. In theory, it bothers me a little bit. $\endgroup$ – Pete L. Clark Dec 9 '10 at 1:15
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    $\begingroup$ @Pete: the policy is certainly in SO's best interest, so I understand the reason for its existence. It allows people in the SO network to move more quickly into new communities so that they can grow faster. Whether it is in our best interest... $\endgroup$ – Qiaochu Yuan Dec 9 '10 at 2:43

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