Vote Swapping Ruled Legal 496
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.'"
Seems reasonable... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Seems reasonable... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Seems reasonable... (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:Seems reasonable... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Cool (Score:2)
I'll agree with just about anything that helps "the third guy" in elections. I'm tired of throwing my vote away!
Unfortunately, it's hard for me to believe that a third party will ever have a legitimate chance at winning the presidency...
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Stranger things have happened. Of course it never will, since almost everyone shares your attitude.
Costa Rica (my adopted country) has had a two-party system for well over 40 years. Last election, the incumbent party failed to obtain more than 10% of the vote, and a completely new party is sharing power with the traditional "opposition" whic
Re:Cool (Score:5, Interesting)
You rank the candidates instead of just picking one. On the first pass of counting, the highest ranked candidate on your ballot gets your vote.
Then they eliminate the lowest ranked candidate. Then the ballots are re-counted, and anyone who had that as their highest rank has their vote go to their 2nd ranked candidate.
Repeat until you have a clear winner.
The advantages are:
1) if you have single issue candidates, then the first round of counting tells you how important each of those single issue candidates were
2) if you put your highest rank on your "idealist" candidate, and second rank on your "practical candidate", then you get to make both of those votes without throwing your vote away.
Re:Cool (Score:5, Informative)
There are lots of different systems but Range Voting [rangevoting.org] looks pretty good to me.
That's only one layer of the discussion. There are several ways it could be implemented in a federal system to elect a president. Unfortunately, its a tedious boring subject for most people.
Re:Cool (Score:5, Interesting)
IRV (Instant Runoff Voting, the system you describe) is about the worst of the alternatives to the one we have. Of course, it's still far better. I'd much prefer one of the Condorcet systems. I'd happily support almost any well thought out voting reform plan.
The basic problem with IRV (though it's better at this than first past the post) is this: it can elect candidate A such that the majority of people would be happier with candidate B who lost. This is the so-called Condorcet criteria and the Condorcet systems all pick the winner by this criteria. (They differ in how they handle the case of no clear Condorcet winner.) The basic example would be a three party election with two relative extremists and a moderate. The moderate might be very few people's first choice, but no one's last choice. For the example, lets say A gets 39%, B gets 20%, and C gets 41% of the first place votes, with the A and C voters all putting B as second choice and the B voters all putting A as second choice. First past the post and IRV will both pick one of the extremists, though IRV will do a better job (FPP picks C, IRV picks A). Condorcet, however, will correctly pick the moderate candidate.
Details: Condorcet method [wikipedia.org]
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I prefer a more honest and open system. Me and my pack of goons trying to beat up you and your pack of goons. There is usually a clear and uncontested winner. With no rules no one can really cheat. See open and honest.
But I really don't care much for the impeachment procedings. A knife in the back does work though.
well, no (Score:2)
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Dewey (nearly) beats Truman! (Score:5, Funny)
Doesn't matter (Score:5, Insightful)
This would be a good idea if... (Score:5, Interesting)
I recall one of the many controversies in the 2000 election in Florida was some people were staying home in the panhandle (Central Time) because they were being told by the TV talking heads that Florida was already decided (in the rest of the state, Eastern Time) and so their vote didn't count.
NBC's Tom Brokaw actually had an interesting idea -- have the polling take place over a two or three day weekend instead of Tuesday and have ALL the poll stations open and close at exactly the same time irrespective of time zone. That way you mitigate the 'my vote doesn't count' problem as well as making it more convenient for those of us who want to watch 'House MD' on Tuesday night.
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I like your idea though.
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Why did it fail? Lets use my home state of Ohio as an example. Ohio has 20 electoral votes, and is notoriously a swing state in presidential elections. If Ohio adopted the allocation as above, pretty much any major party candidate would get at least
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No. Just say no.
I'm a poll worker and we have enough trouble getting volunteers to cover the polls for one day. There is absolutley no way we could get enough bodies to cover for three. As it is now, the senior citizens who work there are fried by 5 and barely make it until 8. If they had to come back the next day, they'
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The fact that your vote doesn't count has NOTHING to do with the time you cast it. It has everything to do with the fact that there are no candidates worth voting for. No matter who you vote for, big business wins.
Bet this doesn't end here (Score:3, Interesting)
Personally I find that this is probably a distasteful ruling -- voting is supposed to be a matter of conscience in one's own locality -- not somewhere across party lines where presumably money could also change hands to encourage the vote swap -- i.e. who says a person can't claim to vote swap with multiple people, or even use a spam list to fake the trades -- thus essentially buying votes -- which IS illegal.
But on the one on one level, since this is America a person ought to be able to say whatever they want short of "fire" in a crowded theater type stuff, so this isn't necessarily a bad ruling.
The question is, what SHOULD the law or at least constitutionality of something like this be given the 'Net?
Thoughts?
Re:Bet this doesn't end here (Score:5, Interesting)
With one major problem - 3rd party candidates can't get elected mostly because everyone knows that 3rd party candidates can't get elected.
I sincerely believe that most people would vote for just about anyone other than Tweedledee(D) and Tweedledum(R), given a serious option. But we all know that doing so effectively throws away our vote, so we settle for the lesser of the two evils.
The question is, what SHOULD the law or at least constitutionality of something like this be given the 'Net?
We shouldn't need to resort to a system such as vote-swapping, which arises only as a symptom of a frustrated populace trying to balance an issue more a matter of perception than actual tallies. If we actually had some form of fair election system like IRV (not saying that IRV doesn't have its flaws, but it does a hell of a lot better than what we have in the US now), we wouldn't need these games, because everyone would vote for who they really wanted, while still getting to pick a "safety" from the big-two.
Re:Bet this doesn't end here (Score:4, Interesting)
This perception would change the moment 3rd party candidates started getting elected... to local office. Personally, I have no problem understanding or accepting that a party whose platform is either so poorly presented or fundamentally unrepresentative that it cannot consistently get elected to offices such as Mayor, County Sheriff, School Board Chair, State Legislator, or State Governor--let alone hold a significant fraction of the House of Representatives or the Senate!--can't get elected to the highest political office in the land, representing the will of the entire citizenry, wielding the full power of the armed forces, and directing foreign policy for the nation as a whole.
Once third parties start proving their worth in local and regional offices, and stop trying to skip ahead to the presidential election, then they'll be ready to try for national office.
If vote swapping is legal, then... (Score:2, Interesting)
Frankly, I think that the only way to prevent abuse is to go to direct democracy. But that requires superior education. At the moment, the US spends $50 per person per year on education
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Mmm...sources on the $50 and 35-hour week statements?
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- Besides, it's pretty well established that people will do more productive work on a 35-hour week than a 40+-hour one.
I don't suppose you'd care to cite any sources to back up those claims, especially regarding education. 5 minutes on Google [usatoday.com] brought me to a very different (though slightly dated) per-student spending figure.
Direct democracy is two wolves and a sheep deciding on what's for dinner. I imagine the civil rights movement would
Updated Figures (Score:2)
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Long-term studies in countries such as France and Germany. Google is your friend.
Here's an idea! (Score:4, Insightful)
Plain and simple (Score:2)
What's so wrong about vote swapping? (Score:2)
That's not necessarily true. Workarounds sometimes allow a problem to build to enough of a critical mass to demand attention instead of just causing people to quit trying like an intractable problem does. Voting in America is definitely a system that a majority of "users" think is flawed and don't bother with anymore.
Just because something is legal doesn't make it right. There might be something wrong with the electio
What is Vote Swapping? (Score:3, Interesting)
So is this vote swapping thing related to that in some way?
Insight requested, please. (Score:2)
I understand the point of political parties is to get elected and to collectively wield power, but vote swapping seems to undermine the actual election of individuals who are ultimately each responsible for their own upholding of their constitutional oaths.
Tamney Hall also legal? (Score:2)
For whatever ends, this is still called corruption.
vote swapping wouldn't work anyway (Score:5, Insightful)
note that this is intentional. (and it's the reason all those voter-receipt-check-that-your-vote-was-counted ideas don't show you HOW you voted) imagine your boss at work saying "everyone bring in your voter receipt wednesday if you want to get a pay check friday!" (or your union leader, who might say "if you want your wife to not have any 'accidents'.")
TFA is wrong on the law (Score:5, Informative)
Reverse Gerrymandering (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Just Democrats (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Just Democrats (Score:4, Insightful)
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Incorrect, as this may well throw the election to the Democrats.
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I dunno....since the vote swapping thing might get more exposure now, it might actually work to get some real votes in for a 3rd party on a national level??
No one said this had to be Rep vs Dem swapping......why not set up one for swapping Republocrats votes for Libertarian? If Ron Paul were to go indie.....maybe this would work to get him more votes.
I gotta think that there are a fair number of centrist Dempublicans that would be happy t
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Re:Just Democrats (Score:4, Informative)
I fail to see how this is a worse result than handing it to the GOP.
While the GOP pays lip service to Libertarian principles, anybody who has paid attention can clearly see that the GOP tends to spend significantly more money, expand government, and add government power, all at rates that outpace Democrats.
As such, I see it as a feature, not a bug, that a vote for a Libertarian could get a Democrat instead of a GOPer.
Re:Just Democrats (Score:5, Insightful)
If your vote contributes to throwing the election to Democrats, that's the only way it'll be effective.
Think about it. The Libertarian candidate isn't going to win no matter what, but the Republicans might. If the Republicans can still win and gain power without your vote, then why should they care about Libertarian issues, or your opinions?
If you vote Libertarian and the Republicans lose because people like you didn't vote for them, it forces them to take notice. They lost the election because certain people were so disaffected by the party that they deliberately withheld their votes by supporting the Libertarians instead.
In short, the only way you can get mainstream parties to listen to you isn't by helping them win, it's by making them lose, and doing so in a way that clearly demonstrates the direction you want them to take.
Re:Just Democrats (Score:4, Insightful)
As long as the majority both care who is elected, and don't think a third party has a chance, then the third party candidate has no chance. People will always vote against the party they dislike most by voting for the party they dislike least.
(shameless plug: that's why we need a different voting method in the US; examples: Instant Runoff (IRV), Condorcet)
The only reason I think you are voting Libertarian (it sounds like) is because you care more about the principle of the thing than about who actually wins. You sir, are a rare minority (for better or worse).
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It is happening, but unfortunately the reason the Republicans lost wasn't because they lacked the Libertarian vote, therefore as Machiavellian power-junkies they have no motivation to court Libertarian issues. Instead, they (correctly) perceive the religious right and anti-terrorist patriots as the strongest constituencies right now, so t
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So yes, thats emperical evidence: voted L, got D in a mixed district.
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Does it really matter any more whether the official story about the attack is accurate?
Well, yes! If the government really flew remote-controlled Boeing aircraft into lower Manhattan, wired several buildings with explosives, and killed a bunch of American civilians... that would significantly change my view of what needed to be done with the US government. In particular, we'd need to do a French Revolution-style purge... bring back the good ol' guillotine.
Fortunately for our friends in Washington, only a few nuts actually
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Re:Just Democrats (Score:4, Informative)
Here is a graph of the national debt by year, with the Presidents helpfully color coded.
http://www.cedarcomm.com/~stevelm1/USDebt_files/i
It shows that under Republican rule the debt not only tends to increase, but so does the rate of growth of the debt.
If you view the graphic in log scale, it flattens some of the current spending, but it also clearly shows that the debt grows faster under GOP rule.
http://www.cedarcomm.com/~stevelm1/us_debt_log.pn
A typical Republican answer to all of this is that it's not such a big deal, because the economy as a whole is growing, and as such, one should view the debt as a percentage of GDP.
http://www.cedarcomm.com/~stevelm1/USDebt_files/i
When one does that, it becomes even more clear that the GOP is the big spender of the political parties.
As for the rest of your claims, I'd simply note that since 2000 the debt has grown by 3.5 trillion dollars. For perspective, total federal tax revenues in 2000 were just about 2 trillion dollars.
The Republicans are huge spenders. I know they claim otherwise, but the facts neatly disprove those claims.
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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 rott
Re:Just Democrats (Score:5, Interesting)
We libertarians believe in things like civil rights and limitations on federal government power. If republicans have ever supported these concepts, it hasn't been during my politically aware lifetime (last 15 years or so.)
I don't know what the hell Ron Paul thinks he's doing acting like part of that group of idiots. And don't tell me that they are both supposed to be "conservative". The pointless and unnecessary wars they tend to start and glamorize are the most expensive, wasteful, and downright suicidal (on a national level) government programs I've ever seen.
Libertarians are much more similar to democrats these days - Oh, except we have actual beliefs where democrats* use polling.
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* Dennis Kucinich and possibly Mike Gravel excluded
Re:Just Democrats (Score:4, Insightful)
Youngster. You don't remember Ronald Reagan, who basically ran on civil rights and limitations on federal government power, and who actually popularized "The scariest words in the English Language: I'm from the government and I'm here to help."
Republicans have certainly become corrupted since then (The current administration very much so), but they're still more likely to limit government interference in the free market than Democrats are.
Dude, I know it's a popular misconception, especially among the R's, but Libertarians are NOTHING LIKE republicans, and it's just as easy for us to see their behavior is deceitful, wasteful, totalitarian, and just plain disgusting.
Don't mistake the current crop of oil-industry idiots for the majority of Republicans.
I don't know what the hell Ron Paul thinks he's doing acting like part of that group of idiots. And don't tell me that they are both supposed to be "conservative". The pointless and unnecessary wars they tend to start and glamorize are the most expensive, wasteful, and downright suicidal (on a national level) government programs I've ever seen.
Ron Paul and Ronnie Reagan have a lot in common- and while I have a tendency to agree with you on "pointless and unnecessary wars", back in the 1980s they knew how to fight them cheaply with a very minimum of waste. The invasion of Panama was the worst, and even that was over in a couple of weeks. Most followed the War Powers Act that gives the sitting President 48 hours before he has to report to Congress to ask for permission for a war. A good Republican IS a Libertarian.
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Re:Just Democrats (Score:5, Interesting)
I think it's interesting that representatives listening to what their constituents think has been turned into a bad thing by the politicians and pundits who don't give a crap what people think, and just want to force their ideologies onto everybody else.
Re:Just Democrats (Score:5, Interesting)
The bad thing is when they are RUNNING for office, and use a constantly changing series of the latest poll results to change their presentation of themselves and their positions; sometimes even changing their (public) positions.
To put it bluntly, there is in my opinion a lot less actual content in the (metaphorical) democratic mission statement vs the (metaphorical) libertarian one. It's too vague - there aren't enough clear assertions for me. If there was such an official statement (there may be, I didn't check), I bet it would include a lot of marketing bs.
The basic idea I've gotten growing up in California, a heavily democratic state, was that they are populist. They were supposed to be "for the people", support civil rights (against the surveillance-state republicans), stand up for the small guy, you know.. union type stuff on a larger scale. That has been my impression of what their core focus is.
But being about someone else, even those you represent, cedes responsibility about policy decisions to a mythical public opinion, which a hypothetical perfect democrat would obviously modulate through her or his own feelings about right and wrong, as would any other human being.
The public opinion part is the problem. It's easy for anyone to claim that the public thinks anything. Most people act as if they believe that "public opinion" is whatever beliefs news programs express. They can come out with "surveys" or do selected interviews or change any story to be told from any angle.
There are also polling-scams, cross-party interference, gender and ethnic bias, etc.. My basic point is that nowadays, with mass media, you can not trust "public opinion" to be accurate, period. Yet policy and campaign decisions are made on these issues regularly.
At it's heart, it feels to me like the democratic party doesn't really know what it supports, except the people. Thus it's constantly showing it's weak side, acting in service of so many different interests that it's trivial for it's own enemies to influence these interests and thus the party.
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Libertarians on the other hand have a VERY clear concept of which policies they support or do not, without having to resort to an insecure constant checking and re-checking of who agrees on this one. Libertarians are not about compromise. We're about freedom of the individual and minimal intrusion of government.
I believe that it should be the case that my rights end where yours begin, and that they are equal. It all grows out from that core.
I believe that the government is there to help moderate those boundaries and solve issues too large for individuals - such as prosecuting murders - and that it should do so with minimum overhead and minimum intrusion into any person's freedom.
I also believe that other governments and their citizens should be treated with the same respect, unless/until they prove unworthy of it. Country interaction is just a fractal expansion of the same core principal for individuals - equal rights, opportunities.
No true Libertarian would EVER vote to authorize a government to spy on it's own people without a strong duty of proof that it was justified. Or to invade a non-threatening country. Or to take away any person's rights unless they threatened or violated some other person's.
enough ranting. that's my take.
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I would say they represent a conquering foreign government.
They have destroyed our public education system,
they have halted our intellectual progress,
they have weakened the infrastructure of our society,
they have concentrated the wealth in the hands
of their supporters, and they have broken treaties
we had agreed to as a nation.
Captcha : suffrage
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2. There is no actual contract or binding agreement to cast a vote in any particular manner involved in these sites. They are not actually trading or selling anything, even a vote. What they are essentially doing is polling people and allowing them to base their choice on what others are doing. It's really nothing special and there is no reason for this to be illegal.
Re:This is BULLSHIT (Score:5, Interesting)
You aren't actually trading anything. You say I will use my legal vote to do A if you do B. There is no way to enforce it just a gentleman's agreement.
But let us say it is illegal. Then how could anyone ever vote. Voting is basically a trade is it not? The politician offers to do the things if you vote for them. Sounds like a trade to me.
So if you can't "trade" votes, IMHO, you can't have a democratic voting process.
As someone who campaigned for Nader in 2000... (Score:5, Insightful)
1. As you say, it's not enforceable. You might trust your cousin in another state to trade with you, but that doesn't scale, certainly not via an anonymous website.
2. It defeats the purpose of voting: to cast your ballot for what you believe in. There's an argument that vote-swapping could bring you closer to what you want in the long run, but picture trying to swap votes in different races with different people in assorted districts in your state -- the calculations get out of hand very quickly.
3. This is a distraction from the structural flaws in our voting system, such as prohibitive ballot-access laws, first-past-the-post, and the Electoral College.
Re:This is BULLSHIT (Score:5, Interesting)
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You shouldn't be allowed to make an agreement with someone that dictates how you should vote.
Quite the opposite, you make an agreement with someone when you vote; the person you vote for. I certainly know that when the candidates come knocking on my door (I live in the UK, they actually do that here*) I discuss their party policies with them, and form my opinion about who to vote for.
In essence you are saying to that person I'll vote for you, if you vote for these policies.
*That's not 100% true, it depends on where you live, if you live in a marginal you'll get home visits from the candidat
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It's called trust. Have you ever heard of that concept? And it's not like you're trading votes with a person who's holding diametrically-opposed views to your own. Chances are, if you were swapping votes in the last election, it was because you didn't want Bush elected first and foremost. And as long as you're trading votes with someone who has the same primary goal as your own, then I don't see what the problem is.
Let's be pr
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Cheers!
Unless you're a Congressman / Senator? (Score:3, Insightful)
This mechanism of reaching a compromise by agreement on how someone will vote on various issues is pretty deeply ingrained in U.S. politics, so it would be odd indeed to restrict it's use to elected officials only.
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Let's take a quiz. Two wrongs don't make a.... what?
Re:What about selling your vote? (Score:4, Interesting)
(That last part is a joke, btw. Contracts to perform an illegal act are non-binding)
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Contracts to perform an illegal act are non-binding
But the act of voting is not illegal... It seems adhering to the contract is the only illegal thing here.
In the US, can you be convicted for 'you are a criminal either way' situations?
Suppose men enter a building separately (they don't know each other) and both commit unrelated crimes at the exact same time. The police get there to apprehend both of them, but don't know which one committed which crime. Can they be convicted? If the crimes were NOT at the same time, then can they both use the defense that t
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And that's why we have secret ballots. Throw in coercion too.
And you can't really verifiably swap votes in such a scheme either -- the voter swap stuff amounted to nothing more than a gentleman's agreement, and I have no doubts that a significant percentage of the participants in the voter swap reneged when they actually got to the booths. I don't imagine the voteswap sites were under any illusions that it would be otherwise.
Nice to know
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Theoretically, it's a win-win situation, but as you have noticed, it's based on trust, just that it might be good to know the numbers. (but considering the fact that probably only a very small proportion of the electorate actually part
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Cheers!
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Re:9th Circus ?!? It will be reversed (Score:5, Informative)
As a percentage of cases overturned, the 4th, 5th, 8th, and 10th circuits were overturned by the Supreme Court 100% of the time, the 9th was only 75% of the time.
The national average is 74%...in short the 9th Circuit is statistically no more or less likely to be overturned than anywhere else.
(source: http://www.centerforindividualfreedom.org/legal/re versal_rates.pdf [centerfori...reedom.org])
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Well, lets put that in context... [centerfori...reedom.org] -- note the same site...
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Some people just don't actually follow up on citations.
To anyone who feel's motivated to mod parent up, please review the SOURCE of the PDF first. [centerfori...reedom.org]
Clearly the GP is not "completely wrong". The GP is more on the money than he realized.
Lie with statistics? (Score:5, Insightful)
number of decisions overturned / number of decisions reviewed = 75% for 9th district
However, the supreme court only reviews cases that are controversial and/or of judicial importance in the first place. The 9th circuit had a whopping 24 cases reviewed by the SC and 18 decisions were overturned - most of the other courts had only 1-4 cases reviewed.
The important metric is really:
number of cases overturned by supreme court / number of cases decided by circuit court
Your source document does not show this data.
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1) Because a decision was completely wrong.
2) Because the decision was complex and the supreme court wanted to weigh in on it.
You have both inferred either:
1) The 9th circuit makes a lot of bad decisions
2) The 9th circuit tries a lot of difficult cases that the Supremes want to review.
The truth is probably a a com
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Your statistics that the 9th Circuit is overtuned only 75% of the time, but the 4th, 5th, 8th and 10th circuits are overturned 100% of the time is incredibly misleading.
While you can look at the raw percentage numbers alone (and thus you are technically correct), the Supreme Court only granted certiorari on 3, 3, 1 and 1 cases in those respective circuits anyway, while they heard TWENTY FOUR cases from the 9th Circuit in the same time period. Of those, 18 were reversed or vacated (which is 6x the 4th and
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Out of 12 courts of appeals, more than a fifth of the population lives in the jurisdiction of the 9th circuit.
The number of cases heard by appeals courts correlates so closely to the districts population as to render any other proposed explanation obvious reaching. (Not counting the DC Circuit)
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There's obviously SCOTUS eyes watching the 9th...
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