# Buying votes: turning vice into virtue?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buying-votes-turning-vice-into-virtue/435445>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [January 29, 2008, 11:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buying-votes-turning-vice-into-virtue/435445 "2008-01-29T11:09:17Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\
**Post date:** [January 29, 2008, 11:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buying-votes-turning-vice-into-virtue/435445/1 "2008-01-29T11:09:17Z")

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I think I’ve asked this before, perhaps elsewhere, but I’d appreciate new thoughts. Corruption has always been a problem in democracies, and vote-buying is one part. But I wonder if it’s possible to turn this into a virtue?

Suppose, at the polling station, you could openly buy more votes? That you yourself cast, that is. Everyone gets one vote free, but pay (say) $100 and you get a second. Pay (say) $1000 and you get a third; $10000 and you get a fourth. Etc. Having purchased your block of votes, you then go and vote in secret.

It seems to me that this would allow the ordinary citizen to counter the vote-buyers; simltaneously setting a low entry price to make multiple votes attractive but making significant vote-buying prohibitively expensive. And, of course, the actual vote is secret, so someone handing out money has to trust their ‘employees’.