A candidate in an local election is offering free ice cream, but in order to be eligible to get the ice cream, at least one member of your family must be a registered voter. It’s being billed as a campaign launch and social event.
I live in Bellevue, Washington.
This sounds a little shady, like buying votes, but I was unable to locate anything other than laws pertaining to federal elections - not state or local elections.
So my question is: is this legal? And if so, how is it different than just saying, “I’ll give you family $5 if one of you is a registered voter.”?
My local supervisor (city council member) gave out oven hot pads with his name printed on them, as he went door to door soliciting votes. I didn’t think anything about it, and it’s not why I voted for him (mainly it was because out of all the city candidates that have ever run for office, he’s the only one who bothered to go door to door personally in my district), and I still have it. Should I burn it? Should I report him for attempted bribery? Should I chill?
I would be willing to bet that every jurisdiction from municipal and county on up has their own laws about this sort of thing. I imagine there is some threshold of value that has to be exceeded before it becomes problematic. But that is only surmise, perhaps not appropriate for the first response post in GQ.
If you’re concerned about ice cream, then you probably won’t like that Andrew Yang, Democratic POTUS candidate, is giving some voters $1,000/month for a year ($12k) out of his own pockets.
I am a precinct inspector. naita is correct, at least in California. A candidate is not allowed to offer incentives to vote for him or her, nor even to vote. Around here, we have the famous Humboldt offer from one candidate for a free cup of Starbucks coffee for any voter showing up [there] with a “I have voted” sticker. Even though not suggesting voting a particular way, “Naughty naughty, cannot do,” said our County Recorder.
Here in Minnesota, the Campaign Finance Board has rules that candidates can offer the public only items of “nominal value”. Which they classify as something less than $5. It was triggered by a candidate filing a complaint that his opponent was giving out Twinkies to people.
It works the other way, too – a voter can’t give gifts to a candidate. So if you invite a candidate to speak at your group’s dinner meeting, he has to pay for his own dinner.
OldGuy: I do not know the rules with respect to voter registration. But my experience with our County Recorder says such inducements for registration would be allowed, including indicating the party to register under.
Asuka: According to our Recorder, if a private business wants to offer incentives to vote, to vote for a specific candidate, or whatever else, they are entitled to do so. It falls under the category of electioneering. But persons whose name appears on the on the ballot are verboten.