Internet Election NewsUpdated November 14, 2000
With the upcoming election ,the Internet has provided a means for voters to check out each candidates websites; see who is winning during the debates; and email their issues to the candidates. In addition to those functions, the Internet has also provided voters the ability to sell their votes at a minimum bid of $100. This auctioning of votes became a heated issue in Illinois, resulting in a judgment against voteauction.com and an order to stop auctioning off votes to Illinois residents. In Illinois, selling and buying of votes is a Class 4 felony and taken very seriously because it is seen as depriving candidates of a fair election.
On October, 19, 2000, the Illinois Attorney General obtained an injunction shutting down the site. The order also requires identification of those who participated. The vote sellers could be sentenced to up to three years in the penitentiary.
An entirely different legal controversy has arisen in California where an Internet site was encouraging and facilitating Gore and Nader supporters in different states in agreements to mutually change their votes. The idea is to provide Gore with more votes in critical swing states while maintaining Nader's popular vote total for federal campaign finance purposes four years from now. As no votes are being sold, this raises different issues.
The Secretary of State of California issued a statement strongly condemning the Internet vote swap effort, which was sufficiently threatening to bring the site down. Democratic and Green party supporters maintain that they are doing nothing more than engaging in the sort of dealing that congressmen and senators have done for years. (If you vote for my project, I'll vote for yours.) This raises interesting constitutional questions. Before the Internet, such vote swapping could not have been accomplished on a great enough scale to matter; but today -- who knows?
The ACLU has brought suit seeking an injunction against the California authorities to prevent such sites from being shut down. However, the ACLU's initial request was denied.
Apparently at least six such vote swapping sites were in action at one time or another during the recent presidential campaign. One such site claims approximately 15,000 votes swapped. Some observers have opined that the vote swapping activity actually increased the overall popular vote total by bringing out voters who otherwise would have stayed home thinking their votes useless.