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eBay'er Arrested For Attempting To Sell His Vote
The Associated Press reports that Max P. Sanders, 19, is charged with a felony for attempting to auction off his vote on eBay for the upcoming presidential election. From the article: '"Fundamentally, we believe it is wrong to sell your vote," said John Aiken, a spokesman for the office. "There are people that have died for this country for our right to vote, and to take something that lightly, to say, 'I can be bought... It's a real shame"' Yes, that is a terrible shame, isn't it. Perhaps we should arrest, prosecute, and imprison everyone who sells their vote. The boy says it was all a joke, but prosecutors aren't laughing. Max faces up to 5 years in prison and $10,000 in fines if he is convicted.
The elections are anonymous.
I could sell my vote for a million dollars, and still vote however I liked, and you would be none the wiser.
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
I'd have taken advantage of it, called in the media, and explained to them just how common "selling your vote" is in congress, and how there is nobody who truly represents "we the people", especially that portion of us below 30.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
So does that mean that all the professional lobbiest are going to be arrested for trying to buy votes?
---- aut viam inveniam aut faciam
I can see how this sort of thing would be illegal, but at the same time it's not as if he's really hurting anyone or causing a huge halt to progress. It just seems like it would be a waste throw him in prison for five years over something like this.
Saying "I'll probably get modded down for this" in a post is the best way to get it modded up.
then ..... lobbying should be outlawed
Go !
so, its ok if sale of a vote is made under other names, like 'donations', or 'lobbying', or 'support', but its not ok if it is named directly for what it is.
you gotta love the hypocrisy that is reigning on this world.
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Hmm, there is a state law against selling your vote? I'd love to see that challenged all the way to the supreme court. I very much doubt it would hold up. Aren't we all selling our votes in a sense, by giving them to a candidate who promises us something we wish to happen. If I vote for Obama because I would benefit from his health care plan, am I not exchanging my vote for something that is valuable to me?
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
It's your vote. You should be able to do whatever you want to do with your vote. It should be a crime if you did not use your vote at all.
In the previous elections you had black and white... ummm.. ok - no pun intended here so .... theres nothing to see here - goto 10
10 In this election each candidate will pretty much the same thing - there will be subtleties of course, but it reminds me heavily of the futurama episode where the al gore-ish looking twins were battling for presidency of the world - basically agreeing with what each other said.
You can sell out your nation to big business and crazy religion but one individual can't sell his own vote...
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
And people have died for your country for your right to freedom. Freedom is also your right to handle your vote you want to. Who are you [John Aiken] to decide how people make up on who they vote.
PS, I'm not an USA citizen, hence the "your".
He should have opened his vote to lobbying, asked for a few trips, discount loans, contributions and so on. Nothing illegal there, Congress runs like this all year.
Since the Bushies have been stealing votes, would selling this stolen vote be considered selling stolen goods?
This sounds like a play by the Secretary of State to win some political points than anything else. Consider the following:
1. No money changed hands.
2. No bids were actually placed.
3. The Secretary of State is an elected official.
4. The SoS office is playing this up big with statements about VFWs and trivializing votes like they caught some big criminal here.
5. The ebayer is some dumb college kid who's either making a statement, or a dumb joke, or both.
As far as the "people died to preserve your right to vote", I'd say those people also died to protect peoples rights of expression. This dumb stunt sounds a lot more like expression than an honest attempt at vote selling and profiteering.
AccountKiller
is this from lobbyists?
We've got an entire political system built-up around corporations and special interest groups persuading and drafting laws that will directly affect citizens...
If we're going to arrest people, can we start with the Microsofts and the General Motors of the world and then if we have any space left in the prisons, we'll work out what to do with the kids?
The road between democracy and tyranny is paved with secrecy in the name of security.
I think that the individual has the right to decide whether it's more important for him to gain a few dollars versus influencing which party wins.
Sometimes individual rights collide with the collective interest. When you choose to live in a country with a government, you give up some individual rights -- in exchange you get safety for your person. The old Icelandic Republic allowed the selling and buying of votes; within a few hundred years four families had cornered the market and civil war was the inevitable result. New democracies like the US don't allow the buying and selling of votes for a good reason. As a civilization, we learn from the mistakes of the past and try to avoid repeating them.
Since when is a 19 year old, of age to vote, considered a "boy"?
It's a simple matter of complex programming.
my vote elects the representative. representative's vote makes the law. representative's vote carry not only more weight but also much more impact on the society than my vote. and we know how elected officials vote according to their wish, not constituents' wishes, once they get elected.
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What about a husband who solicts a hitman in an anonymous 'net forum to off his wife?
Using the logic of /. posters he could argue:
1) The husband didn't actually pull the trigger
2) No deal was actually cut
3) The wife is still alive in good health
4) It was an exercise of free speech
5) He never intended to go through with it anyway, it was a joke
6) What about soldiers in Iraq killing people?
When things like this pop up and the authorities find out, they HAVE to prosecute. If something like this became systematic, we'd have a real problem on our hands.
-- these are only opinions and they might not be mine.
That is totally true. This is thoughtcrime. No actual crime was committed. We do not know if he actually intended to complete the transaction, or simply highlight the fact that lobbyists buy votes all the time.
Yes, as a matter of fact, it is. We had many, many long conversations about many things related to his service, including what he fought for, and the many various reason he fought for it. He said he fought for many reasons; because he was ordered to and didn't have a choice, because it was to protect people who couldn't protect themselves. To give people the freedom to choose how they will live their own lives, instead of letting other people force them to live their lives a certain way.
You have the right to vote however you wish to. And while he would think that what this person was doing in selling their vote was sad, he would be happy that he lived in a country where that man had the freedom to do with his vote what he wanted.
Except we apparently don't live in that land.
Edward@Tomato - /home/Edward/ man woman
man: no entry for woman in the manual.
"Qua!?"
...out of his vote, instead of throwing it away on a candidate who is trying to BUY his vote with nothing more than empty promises...
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
Crap beer. Move to Germany, join a legal brothel and drink good beer. Win-win.
Ugh... this is why District Attorneys drive me crazy (and, as a Public Defender, I deal with them regularly). Using an 1893 law to prosecute a college student... "Fundamentally," as they say, that makes them a bunch of a-holes! If you ever wanted to deal with a group of people who think in binary (on/off, black/white, etc.), work with DAs on a regular basis. Absolutely, no sense of humor...
With a law that old, however, I think it could at the very least be challenged on 1st Amendment grounds. Afterall, isn't "selling" your vote just a political statement as to the complete lack of difference your vote makes?
I'm holding a contest to decide which candidate I want to vote for. I'm broke, so the economy is important to me. Whoever is able to raise the most money to give to me will obviously be the one best suited to make the economy work in my favor & I will naturally want to vote for them.
I can't help but wonder what anyone could say if it was worded like that, lobbyists seem to be getting away with officials putting it like that.
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
then arrest everyone in Congress that took money from lobbyists in order to vote for or against certain bills in Congress. Don't just arrest the little people but the big ones as well.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
Speaking of when you choose, when exactly is that? Does this choice happen when you are born, or when you begin toddling? What alternatives are you given when you are making this choice?
in exchange you get safety for your person.
Moron.
I WILL be calling this office and voicing my opinion.
I try to look ahead...But it's bad enough that Americans have to figure out a way to get the scumbags out of office but how the hell are we to when we have total idiots like these prosecutors in places of authority.
Mr. Aiken, take off your phony patriot pants and start putting my tax dollars to real work by going after the all-too-well-known criminal politicians. Hell no wonder this kid wants to sell his vote. That's the example he knows!
PM
Yeah, good call.
I was thinking: you only see this kind of frantic throwing-the-book-at-him, in this case well before any crime was actually consummated, if the person is drawing our attention to a dangerous idea. The idea, in this case, might be any of:
Our current social pattern has some spots which, if they became widely known, would cause a collapse. You can tell you've found one when people jump your case just for broaching the subject.
FATMOUSE + YOU = FATMOUSE
The sale of a vote to the highest bidder is not a path that leads to freedom; nor can it even be called freedom. No man who sells his vote can be said to be a free man nor lay claim to self governance.
Your absurd claim means that we (should) have the freedom to sell ourselves into slavery. Can that even be called freedom? With that "freedom" can we guarantee that all slaves have entered into slavery out of their own free choice?
Don't backpedal and claim this misses the point. You claimed "freedom is...or is not." If you believe we should be free to sell our right to vote, our very thoughts, opinions, and say in self governance, then surely you also believe we should be free to auction off our other rights as well.
I'm sure your grandfather would be proud.