[huckleberries21]

At the risk of sounding naive, I still think that this kind of nonsense should be called out and not just some "norm" for online voting. The concept of consumer democracy has a lot of potential, and we need to keep objecting to bots and bought votes to make it reliable. Acceptance of unethical behavior just makes it more entrenched.

[ChuckMcM]

Oh I absolutely agree. In fact any sort of voting where the only authentication for the constituent is an email address should never be used for anything. It is entirely possible to fabricate a million users in the blink of an eye. Even ones that use a variety of web mail services (Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, Etc) Not to mention that its pretty trivial to set up your own domains and create mailbox farms with automated responses clicking on authenticating links.

I am speculating that this sort of abuse will lead to the emergence of a nominal digital ID implementation. A point where an individual will not be allowed to participate in some online activities that they might wish to participate in because their lack of proof that they are real, and unique.