Circuit Court Okays Vote Swapping Site

scubacuda writes "C|net reports that the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals court has ruled in favor of Alan Porter's website, Voteexchange2000.com, a site enabling Gore and Nader voters to swap their Gore votes in states where Bush was likely to win anyway for the Green party candidate Nader. In response to the court's decision, Mark Rosenbaum, legal director of the ACLU's Southern California office, said, "We're pleased that the court's ruling permits us to challenge the legality of the secretary of state's partisan attempt to silence political speech on the Internet during the 2000 election." (For a look at some of the legal issues behind "vote swapping," visit Gigalaw)"

Comments

Yes, it's legal

[sql*kitten]

Yes, it's legal, but is it a good idea? There is a loophole in representative democracy which leaves it open to manipulation by this type of vote-shuffling - in a population of 5^n, 3^n can outvote everyone else if they're well placed. I would say that this is far, far worse for democracy than the recent irregularities in Florida, because this is now institutionalized.

Re:Yes, it's legal

[quigonn]

Recently, a documentation in Austrian TV showed in a pretty good way that all the stuff that was going on in Florida was well-planned -- certain demographic groups weren't allowed to vote, and those groups were mostly people who were about to elect Gore (if they had been allowed to).

But beside that, the two-party system in the US is very questionable, anyway, since it doesn't have to do a lot with democracy anymore. The only difference compared to "democratic" elections in e.g. Cuba is that there are two parties instead of one, so in the US you can only choose the lesser of two evils, ultra-rightwing and moderately rightwing, that is.

Re:Yes, it's legal

[Malcontent]

"Yes, it's legal, but is it a good idea?"

Why not? Our country relies on the electoral collage and as long as that system is in place there is no moral reason not to use the system to your best advantage. Think of it this way.

If you live in a heavily democratic state (say NY or CA) and you are a republican your vote is wasted, if you live in a heavily republican state (say MT or AZ) and you are a democrat you might as well not even bother to vote.

This way everybody can vote feel like our vote counts. As an added bonus we give increased power to minority parties and that can't be bad.

Really I think this is a creative way for the voters to take back the elections. The candidates don't even campaign in states that are a lock for one party or another anymore.

Re:Yes, it's legal

[87C751]

If the mid west or Alaska felt like the government just didn't represent their needs why wouldn't they try to leave the union and form a government that better met their needs.

What makes you think Alaska isn't trying?

Re:No, Bush won

[quigonn]

Yes, I have: http://www.rense.com/general26/thouss.htm

Re:Verifiable vote swapping is and should be illeg

[Galvatron]

Why should it have a name on it? Normal ballots don't have names, they just only give one ballot to each registered voter who comes in. All you have to do is record the number of registered voters who came in, and make sure the number of receipts matches up. Or print two receipts, one with a name, and one with the vote. Put them in different boxes, and make sure the two boxes end up with the same number of receipts.