Meritocracy is about the most meritorious - that much is incontestible; sorry to say. As much as it’s nice to please people, you don’t want to be offering something just because it sounds nice. A meritocracy implies we absolutely trust those who’ve proven themselves through their efforts. Anyone who disagrees that meritocracy is about merit, isn’t actually a meritocrat. And so you’d have to pass exams (within the new system) to vote.
Unearned votes are the mark of the failed Liberal system. We don’t want the rule of the ignorant anymore. That’s what meritocracy is fundamentally about! That HAS TO BE what it’s about. Otherwise you are just defending the old system and clinging onto it. We don’t WANT the old system to survive! We don’t want any of its signs.
As for the process of fact-checking: it’s fundamentally a boring job to go over what others have said and scrutinize every detail. That won’t be interesting enough to work. Instead of some externalized system, we use our own intelligence to understand how meritorious someone is. The factual understandings and figures fall under careful scrutiny with specific process (like the Labour 2017 Manifesto); but in general terms no, you wouldn’t be watching everything someone else said - that’s far too ineffective and boring, and antithesis to providing more merit yourself!
You don’t NEED participation from voters to make something to work. That’s the whole point of a meritocracy. You attract only the people willing to put in 110%, or 1000% of the effort. There’s no need to appeal to anything but real, hard work and effort towards a better society.
You don’t want to assign boring research tasks or maintenance tasks. You want people to do whatever they want to do for the cause - they must be inspired. Not held back by the same-old, same-old processes and language. Without a programming team, we’re stuck with this website, but there are tools for collective team work.