Voteauction.com

GMontag writes: "Actually, this idea came up on the H2K mailing list a few months ago. A Wired story covers James Baumgartner's idea of the same thing. James is an MFA student at Albany, N.Y.'s Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Basic idea, auction off write-in ballots to the highest bidding special interest group (not politician, read the article). The voters fill everything out themselves and they go through a service to check if the vote was cast "properly". Pretty nifty idea and keeps with the tradition of George Washington of Va., The Hon. Richard J. Daley of Chicago and Cas Walker of Knoxville, Tenn. Research of the last 2 men is an exercise left to the reader. If you were planning on skipping your vote this year, perhaps you can pocket a few bucks instead."

Comments

You can already buy a vote at Ebay

[Hairy_Potter]

See this Salon story.

Make me an offer.

Illegal... but should it be?

[lordsutch]

This practice is almost certainly highly illegal in most states (and probably in many countries). However, it probably shouldn't be.

Under rational choice theories of political behavior (see, for example, Downs' An Economic Theory of Democracy), it is irrational to vote if the expected benefit of voting is negative. Since the universe is highly uncertain, and there are tens of thousands of voters in most democratic elections, the gross expected benefit of voting is damn close to zero already, and the net benefit rapidly turns negative when you incorporate the hour it takes to go and vote, the gas for your car, the forgone income or quality time with your family, etc. (Ego satisfaction may have some positive impact, but that's usually offset in most people by the other factors.) It is particularly irrational to vote in the United States, since Democrats and Republicans basically do the same thing once they are elected (take your money/freedom and spend it on their favored groups, without making any real societal changes).

Exchanging money for a vote changes the equation. People who don't otherwise care will vote because the net benefit of voting will be positive. Smaller groups in society benefit from this arrangement because they can "buy" support from apathetic (or even slightly opposed) voters, if they can translate their passion into money.

Imagine the following scenario: homosexuals in Colorado want to defeat an "anti-gay" state referendum (this actually happened). Under "non-vote-buying conditions", you get something like:

• 10% - Adamantly support gay rights
• 10% - Adamantly oppose gay rights
• 10% - Somewhat oppose gay rights
• 70% - Ambivilent; they probably split 35-35

In this situation, the gay rights people lose (the proposal wins 60-40). (The real vote was somewhat closer, 52-48, but the principle is the same.) Now imagine if the gay rights people gave $10 to anyone who voted against the anti-gay proposal (maybe they get the money from Liz Taylor or something; it's not important):

• 10% - Adamantly support gay rights
• 10% - Adamantly oppose gay rights
• 10% - Somewhat oppose gay rights
• 70% - Ambivilent; maybe split 50-20 since they get $10 for supporting gay rights (but $0 for opposing them).

In this situation, the outcome is a 60-40 vote against the proposal, and the gay rights people win by converting ambivilent voters. Of course, the anti-gay-rights people could do the same, but if you accept "passion = $$" (admittedly, an imperfect relationship, but well-evidenced by the Israel lobby and other groups) it makes for more equitable outcomes to groups that genuinely care about the issues.

Re:Illegal... but should it be?

[Jason Earl]

I used to live in Lima, Peru, where they force everyone to vote by fining non-voters. And my naive former self used to think that this was a good idea, but I don't think so anymore.

You see, in Peru everyone voted, but not everyone took the time to become educated about the issues. Because of this they were easily taken in by the most transparent of lies. After all, the average Peruvian doesn't have the education necessary to make complex economic value judgements. And the average American doesn't either. That's why factors like how tall the candidate is actually matter.

The secret of the US system is that the fanatics don't have more votes than you do, they simply are more likely to vote. That's why the senior citizen vote is so important. Senior citizens have been around long enough to know that their vote is worth casting. They read up on the issues, and they go out to the polls en masse. Educated people also tend to vote.

The rest of the populace assumes that their voice can't be heard, and so they whine and complain, but don't vote.

As for the fact that the person who raises the most money often wins. Well, with our current fund raising laws, this shouldn't surprise anyone. After all, with a cap on the amount an individual can give the politician with the most money generally has the most supporters.

My personal observation is that Americans that get involved in politics generally realize that they do have a voice, and the people that complain generally don't take the time to vote. The few exceptions to this rule are those that hold opinions that are so unpopular that we all should be glad that they don't win. Even the far out loonies have an influence that is far greater on politics than those that don't vote.

So vote before you complain.

Deeply disturbing.

[BaronM]

This notion of selling votes deeply disturbs me.

Politicians of all stripes make campaign promises, including tax cuts or entitlement increases to influence voters to vote for them, which could be construed as logically equivalent to buying votes, but I don't really think it is. Selling a vote would entail voting for a politician for direct personal gain, but voting in favor of a politician who promises a tax cut is a statement on public policy; I doubt many voters calculate out "If I vote for X, I will get 1/280,000th of a 10,000,000 tax cut over 7 years, whereas a vote for Y only gets me 1/280,000 of 5,000,000 over 3 years", and then votes for the politician who is offering to "pay" more.

I live in Washington, DC, and have watched Congress at work many times. I really believe that most Congressmen are honorable and doing their best at a staggeringly hard job.

I'm starting to wonder about some of the citizens, though.