Vote Swapping Ruled Legal

cayenne8 writes "During the 2000 election, some sites were set up for people across the nation to agree to swap votes, among them voteswap2000.com and votexchange2000.com. They were established mainly to benefit the third-party candidate Ralph Nader without throwing local elections to George Bush. The state of California threatened to prosecute these sites under criminal statues, and many of them shut down. On Monday the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the vote-swap sites were legal (ruling here, PDF). The court held that '...the websites' vote-swapping mechanisms as well as the communication and vote swaps they enabled were constitutionally protected' and California's spurious threats violated the First Amendment. The 9th Circuit also said the threats violated the US Constitution's Commerce Clause.'"

Dewey (nearly) beats Truman!

[regular_gonzalez]

It's a little known fact that this is why Dewey lost to Truman, falling for the old "you vote for me and I'll vote for you" trick. Poor sportsmanship on the part of Harry S, for sure.

Re:Can this be...

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure. Maybe Nadar will finally get enough votes to earn a permanent part on the ballot, and Gore will lose by even more votes. Oh, wait. You wanted a different outcome entirely!

Re:Just Democrats

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Vote Libertarian--crisis solved :-)

Incorrect, as this may well throw the election to the Democrats.

Re:Just Democrats

[dynamo]

Obviously.
Here are some more apt comparisons, imho:

A vote for a republican is "almost as good as":

  - Giving $100 million to each and every Anti-American group to support terrorist recruitment.
  - Killing millions of innocent civilians in foreign country for PR, without achieving any actual goals, and then refusing to even set any goals.
  - Supporting the fools who continue to do the above (oops, that's "exactly as good as").
  - Switching the US dollar to be officially backed by rotted poached eggs.
  - Receiving a steel-toed kick in the nuts.
  - Popping your own eye with a fork.

Re:Just Democrats

[choongiri]

Hehehe..cool....my first article on Slashdot too...

Hehehe..cool...."geld" is usually spelled with an "h". ;)

ummm

[Topherbyte]

IANAL, but prosecution under a criminal statue isn't likely to go anywhere fast... unless the statue falls and kills someone.

Re:Just Democrats

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, I think you're getting "geld" and "held" mixed up. "Held is usually spelled with an "h", but geld is usually spelled with a "g".

Oh, wait...

Re:Condorcet

[UncleTogie]

My roomies and I use it to choose movies all the time... Especially when we all want to watch something different, this has settled arguments before they start... and if I can explain the method to a raging alcoholic, the Sheeple should be trainable with minimal effort.

Re:Seems reasonable...

[The One and Only]

I think we should replace the entire system with Philocracy [philwelch.net]. With myself, Phil, as dictator, corruption will be avoided entirely (or at least minimized, in the rare case that I'm corrupt).

Re:Where the FUCK is iLife '07???

[JazzLad]

Wow. You guys managed to embarrass Lindsay Lohan.

Takes a lot these days ... ;)