California Attorny General went after a vote swap web site because state law prohibits exchanging a vote for any thing-even another vote. But ‘get out the vote’ efforts offered free car washes and Georgia offered a lottery ticket to win a shotgun. Is not this also offering a bribe to vote regardless that for whom one votes is not part of the illegal exchange?
The California crackdown was in line with prior California practice. In California, a bakery had to stop a promotion where you would get a free donut if you showed your stub from voting.
I think that the voteswapping website crackdown was actually initiated by the Secretary of State of California and not the Attorney General.
yamo - I think that there is a big difference between the two.
In the “vote swapping” you are promising a specific vote. That is what the laws are against.
In the “get the vote out” promotions they are just trying to get people to vote, not to vote for a specific candidate.
If they gave you a free car wash for voting for Al Gore it would be illegal. If they give you a free car wash for voting for who ever you wanted they it is okay.
But in California, you can’t give away anything in consideration for voting. You can’t even use inducements to get to people to the polls. It’s frowned upon out here.
But if i offered the incentive only to particular areas couldn’t i manipulate the outcome of an election?
A few days ago our student newspaper printed a link to Nader Trader, which apparently was designed to help Gore win in highly contested states while still allowing Nader to get 5 percent of the vote.
Was this the site the California Attorney General went after?
'Scuse me? I live and vote in Georgia and have never heard of this practice. Got any specifics? I want my shotgun.