No Selling, Buying Or Trading Of Votes Allowed

from the what-we-need-are-anti-votes! dept

It's semi-official. It's not quite legal to swap your vote with anyone (at least according to California). Actually, you can't "broker the exchange of votes" which really just means that the websites that facilitate the process are illegal. Still, no one has really addressed the underlying issues of why people want to swap votes. Maybe we need to propose a new voting process....
Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  1. icon
    Mike (profile), 31 Oct 2000 @ 4:32pm

    anti votes

    As anyone who has spoken to me about the election knows, I am very intrigued by the idea of anti-votes. I don't necessarily think it would work or that we should do it, but I think the idea is very interesting. The concept is that you still only have one vote but there is a "yes" and "no" next to each candidates name. Thus, you can specify that your vote is really "against" someone as opposed to for the lesser of two evils.

    Yes, there are plenty of problems with this idea, and don't attack me for bringing it up. I just think it's cool to think about.

    The fact is a lot of people will be voting for the lesser of two evils in order to keep the more evil person out of office, and it hardly strikes me as a valid "mandate of the people" to find you backed your way into office by being "less evil".

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. identicon
    mhh5, 31 Oct 2000 @ 4:46pm

    Re: anti votes

    Well, I *have* talked to you about anti-votes, Mike. (Look what dept the post comes from...) And I say, why not have a "maybe" category, too? The winner has the most "yes" votes, and in the event of a tie, the most "maybe" votes or the least "no" votes....? Pretty complex system, I must admit.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. identicon
    ScooterBoy, 31 Oct 2000 @ 5:22pm

    No Subject Given

    DanDot posted a good link to why the whole electoral college system is skewed towards a 2-party system.. an interesting read. I mean, the whole electoral college thing is a vestige of older times.. why not just make it based on popular vote?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  4. identicon
    Ed, 31 Oct 2000 @ 6:21pm

    Re: No Subject Given

    This was mentioned in the link ScooterBoy posted, but the link was busted. This quote, which I lifted from somebody's online course notes, says it all:

    Mathematical economist Kenneth Arrow proved (in 1952) that there is NO consistent method of making a fair choice among three or more candidates. This remarkable result assures us that there is no single election procedure that can always fairly decide the outcome of an election that involves more than two candidates or alternatives.

    link to this | view in thread ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.