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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.
Actually, it may be easier than you think to sell a vote. Read more here: How Secret is Your Ballot? (1/3). Very interesting stuff. There are lots of ways in which someone can verify that you voted the way you claimed.
Worse than just selling your vote, this can be used for voter coercion.
Some people think paper is just the perfect solution for voting, but really it has many problems that can be solved by electronic voting when done carefully. (And of course, when done haphazardly electronic voting has many problems that paper voting does not).
This is absolutely ridiculous. He didn't actually sell his vote, he just put it up for sale. I would argue that its an act of exercising free speech.
The acts punished most harshly in society are not those which are considered most harmful, but those which a class of privileged elites wishes to reserve for itself.
As a protest, I offer one dollar to each person who spoils their ballot. You will be required to film yourself voting and to return the evidence to me.
Think about how much it would mess with the system if everyone in Ohio or Florida decided to swap their vote for the Republicrat or Demopublican candidates for the Libertatian or Green Party candidate...ooooh, it makes all fuzzy inside. But I really doubt there's enough people who are really willing to mess with the system and it make it worthwhile.
I'm sorry, but my grandfather fought in both Korea and Vietnam, received the Purple Heart, and rose to the rank of Command Sargent Majour. He was also a life long Republican and a staunch Conservative. Old School Conservative, not this 'neo-con' crap.
And my grandfather, one of those men who fought and came close to dying for this right to vote, would find this person's arrest a travesty of what he fought for, because he also fought the that man's right to do whatever he wanted with his vote, include selling it.
Edward@Tomato - /home/Edward/ man woman
man: no entry for woman in the manual.
"Qua!?"
It's not civil disobedience to stay home and not vote in the US, we don't have mandatory voting. But given that we can't even recount the ballots for a presidential election (why do we bother saving them? Why not just count them and recycle them? it would save on storage space) there's not a lot of point in showing up. If you want to make a difference, find a way to live on less official income (more barter, less money) and pay those fuckers less taxes.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
a couple here in Vancouver put their newborn girl up for sale on Craigslist for $10000 a few weeks ago and they were charged. Of course they said it was a joke, but the point is that it is still against the law, just like selling your vote is illegal in the US.
Orbis terrarum est non altus satis
Voter coercion? Isn't that what political advertising is all about?
The game.
Without reading any of the responses so far ... (i.e. this might end up as an unpopular opinion). But I did RTFA.
The fact that folks fought to the death to defend my right to do something does not mean I must be obligated to do that thing. Maybe I don't share their values? The idea that this leap of logic is being made is a trifle concerning to me.
I agree you shouldn't have the right to sell your vote, corruption lies along that path.
But the prosecutors have made it an emotive issue, rather than focusing on the real issue (corruption); I think they over-reacted there. Five years - that's pretty ridiculous.
According to the courts, people can swap their votes so there's a double standard here. If the vote is only supposed to be yours or if it is available as barter for whatever service you see fit, even anothers vote, it is saleable.
http://www.aclu.org/votingrights/gen/32427prs20070806.html
Seems as if it is your right to vote, or not, you should be able to do what you want with it without the courts interference, if it is your wish. OR it should be required that each vote actually matter and be so respected that complete accountability be mandatory for voting so that each and every vote has an absolute guarantee of being counted.
I don't see either being the case as long as paper trails and recounts are questioned.
) Human Kind Vs Human Creation
) It'd be interesting to see how many humans would survive to serve us.
I was a representative for a minority party during the 2000 elections in my country (Uruguay, one of the most transparent countries in the world in that area), and while you could theoretically identify a ballot, ballot lists are pre printed, and any visible mark on the ballot disqualifies the vote, so it doesn't happen that way
.
Voters choose one list from among hundreds of options available and put it into an envelope with no identifying information
Ballots are opened in front of representatives of every party, the table head lifts every vote so representatives from each party can verify that the vote was cast, and it is entered (in 2000 it was manually, but these days it's electronic I think).)
Hypothetical vote buyers would have to buy the table heads in every subdivision, and make sure representatives from the other parties don't notice any strange behaviour from the table head (looking for scrathes, marks or whatever identificatory information was included.) (And ours is not a 2-party system, and even the majority party is made up of dozens of smaller parties which I expect would not all be involved in the collusion)
But the particular pattern voting example could not happen under our system.
There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.
This is the perfect form of public protest for an slashdotter (you don't have to get away from the computer).
Everybody on the US please! put your vote on sell on ebay, report here (and in wikileaks?) for coordination. When the police come to arrest you and you are in court don't simply say it is a joke, say it is an act of protest at the current election system, point to the people doing the same here.
A judge can ignore the rights of a kid but not a massive protest from the human wave known as /.!
But... the future refused to change.
I am selling my vote too: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=180261490233
America! FUCK YEAH!
I live in Argentina where the election process is the same (if I understood correctly). A way in which vote coercion (and vote selling) can be done is as follows: Votes are cast inside an envelope with the signature of a couple of representatives from the table (but not always all of them)... so first you get one of those envelopes outside of the place where the voting is being done. This is not necessarily easy, but could be done if you get someone to cast a vote with a fake envelope quickly enough so it's not checked before being put inside the box... or in some other fashion (you could copy or photograph the signatures, which are often very quick and careless, and reproduce them in a new envelope). Once you have a real and valid envelope you give it to the vote seller with the ballot inside and already sealed... he gets a new envelope from the table head, which he pockets, and casts the vote with the envelope he was given. Then goes outside with the empty envelope and the process is repeated.
As a Slashdot discussion grows longer, the probability of an analogy involving cars approaches one.
Then why do we accept the idea of lobbyists? Are they not as corrupt as the "4 families in Iceland"?
The politicians do not listen to the will of the people, in exception when a side offers lots of handouts. If I recall correctly, the founders said that poor people should not vote because they will vote for whomever gives the biggest handout, which is what we're seeing. After all, the inequity of poverty in the USA indicates that there's more poor than rich, so it'd be the "2 wolves and 1 sheep deciding what to have for supper".
Perhaps Heinlein's idea in Starship Troopers where one can vote after serving in the military is the proper choice. It'd be a "poverty check", intelligence test, and understanding our country all wrapped in one.
Beware -- the beast now wears a new skin. They now call themselves "Premier Election Solutions", or PES. Unfortunately, this name change is likely enough to convince the unwashed masses that they're not one and the same.
What's sad is that if you sell your vote, you go to jail, but if you buy a politician, you get to play golf with the judges.
speaking of judges, it's a bit surprising we haven't seen any group take a politician to court over their sudden reversal of vote after receiving a large contribution. (bribe)
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
To quote The Sentencing Project:
Does anything more need to be said?
And you have no proof that congress men actually sold their votes.
I live in Alaska. Nearly every elected official is under investigation by the FBI. Our only congressman is the one that proposed one of the bridges to nowhere. The closest street to the bridge landing was Don Young Way. Did you guess that his name was Don Young? He has a lot of land there, and so do his friends. The bridge to nowhere was supposed to make him and his friens lots of money in real estate investing. Oh, and he sponsored a bill for construction in Florida. Why is the Alaskan representative proposing things for Florida? Perhaps it was the large contribution from someone that would benefit materially from that construction. This is under investigation. Senator Ted Stevens and his son, state senator Ben Stevens are under investigation for accepting bribes as well. And the former governor. And lots of others in the state legislature. Votes are bought all the time. One company, known for being a conservative haven (bought out the "conservative" local paper when it folded to continue the conservative rants in the editorials) was bought out because the owner and his friends/associates were indicted for bribery.
IT happens all the time. You have to do it for 20+ years straight until you are giving people large items for free on a regular basis and not thinking anything of it until the FBI gets involved. But they do get involved. And I know for a fact they are investigating one vote-selling senator and representative. Those are the people representing me. Well, claiming to, but they really only represent friends and donors. That's legal, as long as you disclose the income. But they didn't even bother with that. I'm sure once the FBI is done, whatever they find, the IRS will continue from there.
Learn to love Alaska
Silly kid... All Americans know that only politicians votes are for sale. Not your own.... :)
Close, but no zigar.
"Amerika" is a pre-WWII novelette by Franz Kafka, about a European immigrant to the US who finds the country and people in it quite different from his expectations, for better and for worse.
The term "Amerika" as a political slur was based on this book, but has since then been misunderstood by the great unwashed masses to think there's a German Polizei-like twist to it. So if anyone uses "Amerika" and it's obvious from the context that they mean the latter, they tell a lot more about themselves than America.
"Amerika" is, of course, also often used by people who don't have English as their first language, and where "Amerika" is the correct (for them) way of spelling it. A Dane writing "Amerika" is no more wrong than an American writing "Denmark" instead of "Danmark".