# Anonymous vote buying **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 26, 2005, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anonymous-vote-buying/309915 "2005-06-26T13:42:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Shalmanese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2005, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anonymous-vote-buying/309915/21 "2005-06-28T20:51:27Z")
> [@DocCathode](#): > > Faulty analogy. First, unless the vote buyer is using the same e-mail address as last time, we can’t be sure that they’ve done this before. Second, if I send an e-mail to register somewhere, I cannot be sure that the person receiving that e-mail is the same person who received it last time. It is the same account, but it may have always had multiple users, or have changed ownership. Why would the vote buyer do that? Unless he was hacked, you can be pretty sure that he has nothing to gain by sharing the password with other people. Email was just a simple example, in reality, what’s likely to happen is that the vote buyer distributes his public key and all communication to him is encrypted using that te verify that it is the actual vote buyer. > [@](#): > > Additionally, even if I participated last time and was paid, there is no way to be sure that I will be paid this time. Perhaps the first time was just to gain my confidence and they’ll stiff me this time. If they do, what recourse do I have? If I have anonymous dealings on Ebay or another legal site, I have legal recourse. Again, what motivation would he have to stiff you? Presumably if he found it worthwhile to do it once, he would find it worthwhile to continue doing it. And yes, most people would be leery of someone the second time as well, but like ebay, it’s a reputation thing. If he’s pulled through the last 50 times, it’s highly unlikely that he would stiff you on the 51st time. > [@](#): > > Drug deals (at least the big ones) involve both parties showing up with guns. The threat of death allows both parties to remain anonymous but be sure that the terms of the deal are kept (‘This ain’t real crack! Kill them!’ or ‘This ain’t real cash! Kill them!’). Over the net and without legal recourse, how can either party be sure the other will keep up their end of the deal? Drug deals involve cash because it makes them hard to track. E-mails and electronic transactions are a whole heck of a lot easier to track. Drug deals don’t have to happen in person and neither side has to know of the others identity. True, both sides have to trust each other or trust a 3rd party absolutely but trust can be established without the need for face-to-face interaction (if you make the consequences of breaking trust worse than the benifits of breaking trust). ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2005, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anonymous-vote-buying/309915/22 "2005-06-28T22:00:36Z")
But here’s the thing. How much is an individual vote worth to a buyer? How much trouble will someone go to buy a vote? $10? $100? How much is an individual vote worth to a seller? And the model of the buyer having to sit down and watch thousands of cell phone videos of the sellers proof of voting for the correct candidate…how much time does this guy have? And how do you stop people from “selling” their vote for a candidate they were going to vote for anyway? If you’re buying votes for George Bush, what happens when the (say) 50 million people who voted for him anyway apply for the money? How much are you paying per vote? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2005, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anonymous-vote-buying/309915/23 "2005-06-28T22:37:19Z")
Wasn’t there some scheme that people tried in '04 to swap votes between people in different states? I can’t remember the details, but I’m certain there was something along those lines. BTW, my vote is worth $1,000 if anyone is intersted. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2005, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anonymous-vote-buying/309915/24 "2005-06-28T23:23:06Z")
> [@Shalmanese](#): > > Why would the vote buyer do that? Unless he was hacked, you can be pretty sure that he has nothing to gain by sharing the password with other people. This would be a massive job for just one person. It would likely take a team of vote buyers working together. If the person in charge hires and fires people, you’d have buyers on the team who weren’t there last time. > [@](#): > > Email was just a simple example, in reality, what’s likely to happen is that the vote buyer distributes his public key and all communication to him is encrypted using that te verify that it is the actual vote buyer. Remind me again what keeps more than one person using the same private key if they want to? More, the average person is now completely unsure that they’re dealing with one person or that they are dealing with the same people who bought their vote last time. ‘All I know is that they use the same code key’. Trust on voter’s parts drops to zero. > [@](#): > > Again, what motivation would he have to stiff you? Presumably if he found it worthwhile to do it once, he would find it worthwhile to continue doing it. And yes, most people would be leery of someone the second time as well, but like ebay, it’s a reputation thing. If he’s pulled through the last 50 times, it’s highly unlikely that he would stiff you on the 51st time. Again, you keep saying how anonymous and untraceable this is. If that’s true, voters can’t be sure what the buyer has done in the past. Ebay has rules and membership agreements that are enforced by the staff. Who’s watching over the vote buyer? Why would he stiff me? Because if he can get what he wants for free, why pay for it? Plus, if he stiffs me, I have no recourse. > [@](#): > > (if you make the consequences of breaking trust worse than the benifits of breaking trust). Yes, consequences of breaking the other side’s trust in a drug deal generally include death. What consequence is the buyer facing if he breaks the trust of the voters? They won’t trust him the next time? No biggie. If he wants to buy votes next election, he can always create a new online persona. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2005, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anonymous-vote-buying/309915/25 "2005-06-29T14:49:31Z")
> [@Shalmanese](#): > > How are you going to enforce that? It doesn’t have to be a cell phone, anything capable of recording video would do. Assuming these things are going to get smaller and more unobtrusive, it doesn’t seem like a practical solution. How are the people behind the scheme going to enforce it? I could easily produce a convincing video\* showing myself voting for Pat Buchanan or Michael Moore – hell, I could produce both videos and get double the money. \*It helps that the video quality from a device small enough to sneak into the polls and using ambient light is necessarily going to be pretty crappy – there are fundamental limitations on how good a picture you can get with such-and-such a lens size and illumination level. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2005, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anonymous-vote-buying/309915/26 "2005-06-29T14:55:05Z")
> [@Shalmanese](#): > > Based on reputation. The first time, a couple of people try it on a lark figuring they have nothing to lose and it works. The second time, a lot more people will try it. And the third time, every scam artist on God’s green earth will come rushing in. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2005, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anonymous-vote-buying/309915/27 "2005-06-29T15:00:35Z")
> [@Shalmanese](#): > > all you need to do is to make the voter **film from walking up to the voting booth** all the way to filling out the vote and **walking out again**. Oh, yeah, that should be easy to do in front of the election officials. ---
**Author:** ![Shalmanese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2005, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anonymous-vote-buying/309915/28 "2005-06-30T00:44:09Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > But here’s the thing. How much is an individual vote worth to a buyer? How much trouble will someone go to buy a vote? $10? $100? How much is an individual vote worth to a seller? > > And the model of the buyer having to sit down and watch thousands of cell phone videos of the sellers proof of voting for the correct candidate…how much time does this guy have? And how do you stop people from “selling” their vote for a candidate they were going to vote for anyway? If you’re buying votes for George Bush, what happens when the (say) 50 million people who voted for him anyway apply for the money? How much are you paying per vote? You wouldn’t have to get every voter. Just voters in swing states or even swing counties. If you got it accurate enough, you could probably get away with paying as few as 10 million people to significantly affect the outcome of an election. Lets say you have a budget of 100 million, that seems reasonable. That would come out to about $10 per person. That would be the ballpark figure. And how much would it cost to verify? Assume you pay someone $10 an hour and he can verify a vote every 30 seconds, it would cost approximately 10c per vote to verify. Trivial compared to the payment amount. ---
**Author:** ![Shalmanese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2005, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anonymous-vote-buying/309915/29 "2005-06-30T00:47:57Z")
> [@DocCathode](#): > > This would be a massive job for just one person. It would likely take a team of vote buyers working together. If the person in charge hires and fires people, you’d have buyers on the team who weren’t there last time. Good point, this is a major flaw in the plan. > [@](#): > > Remind me again what keeps more than one person using the same private key if they want to? More, the average person is now completely unsure that they’re dealing with one person or that they are dealing with the same people who bought their vote last time. ‘All I know is that they use the same code key’. Trust on voter’s parts drops to zero. precisely because trust would drop to 0 if you did. > [@](#): > > Again, you keep saying how anonymous and untraceable this is. If that’s true, voters can’t be sure what the buyer has done in the past. Ebay has rules and membership agreements that are enforced by the staff. Who’s watching over the vote buyer? > > Why would he stiff me? Because if he can get what he wants for free, why pay for it? Plus, if he stiffs me, I have no recourse. He wouldn’t stiff you because his reputation is more important than a short term result. Theres not much stopping ebay scammers either, ebay almost never goes after them. Yet the incidences of scamming on ebay are remarkably low because the benifit of scamming just one person is overwhelmingly lower than the cost it takes to build up your reputation in the first place. > [@](#): > > Yes, consequences of breaking the other side’s trust in a drug deal generally include death. What consequence is the buyer facing if he breaks the trust of the voters? They won’t trust him the next time? No biggie. If he wants to buy votes next election, he can always create a new online persona. Yes, but nobody would go for his scheme if he creates a new persona just as nobody would buy something from a first time ebay dealer. He would have to begin the process all over again. ---
**Author:** ![Shalmanese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2005, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anonymous-vote-buying/309915/30 "2005-06-30T00:49:47Z")
> [@Steve MB](#): > > How are the people behind the scheme going to enforce it? I could easily produce a convincing video\* showing myself voting for Pat Buchanan or Michael Moore – hell, I could produce both videos and get double the money. > > \*It helps that the video quality from a device small enough to sneak into the polls and using ambient light is necessarily going to be pretty crappy – there are fundamental limitations on how good a picture you can get with such-and-such a lens size and illumination level. It’s not a “fundamental” limit, the human eye is an example of a camera that is small, high res and light sensitive. Theres nothing to indicate we couldn’t build something much better than a human eye. And I’ve gone into a bit about how to make it less forgable. ---
**Author:** ![Shalmanese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2005, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anonymous-vote-buying/309915/31 "2005-06-30T00:52:09Z")
> [@Steve MB](#): > > And the third time, every scam artist on God’s green earth will come rushing in. Only if the vote buyer gives the entire world his private key which he wouldn’t. > [@Steve MB](#): > > Oh, yeah, that should be easy to do in front of the election officials. Why not? We have cameras even today that are specifically designed to be hidden inconspicuously and resist casual inspection. It seems fundamentally reasonable to me that such things will get smaller and more indiscreet as time goes on. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2005, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anonymous-vote-buying/309915/32 "2005-06-30T02:04:56Z")
> [@Shalmanese](#): > > It’s not a “fundamental” limit, the human eye is an example of a camera that is small, high res and light sensitive. The human eye is actually not that great as a camera – you don’t notice because its **very** narrow angle of good vision is moved around to focus on your point of attention without conscious intervention. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2005, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anonymous-vote-buying/309915/33 "2005-06-30T02:06:51Z")
> [@Shalmanese](#): > > Assume you pay someone $10 an hour and he can verify a vote every 30 seconds Assume that some schlub so bereft of skills that he can’t do better than $10/hour can distinguish a computer-generated fake from a real picture in 30 seconds? While we’re assuming, can we assume that I win the lottery? ---
**Author:** ![furt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/439d5e/32.png) [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2005, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anonymous-vote-buying/309915/34 "2005-06-30T02:54:05Z")
> [@Shalmanese](#): > > Lets say you have a budget of 100 million, that seems reasonable. And tell me who it is that has a hundred mill in untraceable, off-the-books money they can spend every four years? And how is it that none of these dozens, if not hundreds, of video inspectors figure out that they can make a big payday ratting out this huge conspiracy? If cameras are so ultra concealable, what’s to stop one of them from recording a video at the top-secret vote-buying HQ, then blackmailing the criminal mastermind? ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2005, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anonymous-vote-buying/309915/35 "2005-06-30T16:51:28Z")
The other problem is that the vote sellers are anonymous. A vote seller could sell his vote hundreds of times, every time he provides the same “proof” that he voted for the right candidate. Anonymous authentication can prove that an anonymous person is the same person, but it can’t prove that the anonymous person isn’t also another anonymous person. So you get 1,000,000 requests for payment but you have no way to tell if those requests represent unique individuals or are duplicates. This seems to be to be the real killer for the scheme. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2005, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anonymous-vote-buying/309915/36 "2005-06-30T17:15:29Z")
> [@furt](#): > > And tell me who it is that has a hundred mill in untraceable, off-the-books money they can spend every four years? Another point. Mr. Big can’t just call up his secretary and tell her to transfer 100 million dollars to an untraceable anonymous electronic account. Even if the untraceable account really is untraceable, the payment to that account can’t be. You have to tell your bank to transfer 100 million dollars to some account number. If the bank makes the transfer then you might lose track of the money, but the bank WON’T make that transfer. They would suspect, rightly, that there was something illegal going on. So future banks will have to report transfers of this nature, just as today they have to report cash deposits of over $10,000. Transfer more than $10,000 dollars from your account to an anonymous untraceable account and the bank calls the cops. ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2005, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anonymous-vote-buying/309915/37 "2005-06-30T17:57:52Z")
> [@Shalmanese](#): > > He wouldn’t stiff you because his reputation is more important than a short term result. Theres not much stopping ebay scammers either, ebay almost never goes after them. Yet the incidences of scamming on ebay are remarkably low because the benifit of scamming just one person is overwhelmingly lower than the cost it takes to build up your reputation in the first place. This assumes that the buyer is interested in buying votes long term. This is not necessarily a safe assumption. If the next president is likely to appoint three justices to the supreme court, then the next presidential election is important and worth buying. If no further justices are expected to retire for the next dozen years, all those presidential elections can be skipped. Why does this need to be done more than once? > [@](#): > > Yes, but nobody would go for his scheme if he creates a new persona just as nobody would buy something from a first time ebay dealer. He would have to begin the process all over again. How do they know the anonymous buyer that they are dealing with now isn’t the persona of somebody who stiffed voters? And, unless a buyer is buying national and local elections, they have four years to build a new persona. ---
**Author:** ![Driver8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b5a626/32.png) [@Driver8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Driver8)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2005, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anonymous-vote-buying/309915/38 "2005-07-01T13:45:48Z")
This is due to fail simply because of the huge number of people involved. You’re assuming a conspiracy of 10 million average people, who have to keep the whole thing secret. You’re also basing the whole thing on reputation of vote dealers who are supposed to be completely anonymous. You’ve given the cops a whole lot of personal connections to check out here (over 10 million). At least one of those (more likely hundreds or thousands) will unravel, probably taking the whole thing with it. That’s assuming it even gets off the ground, which it won’t. Mostly due to reasons already mentioned. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anonymous-vote-buying/309915.md?page=1)