# Legality of selling my vote? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 7, 2008, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legality-of-selling-my-vote/436650 "2008-02-07T04:37:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Gfactor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9de053/32.png) [@Gfactor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gfactor)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2008, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legality-of-selling-my-vote/436650/21 "2008-02-07T19:53:16Z")
[QUOTE=Two and a Half Inches of Fun] What exactly is consideration? If my girlfriend offers to give me oral sex if I vote for Obama are we violating the law? [/QUOTE] Opportunities for one-liners abound here. Under the Illinois statute, the issue is whether there is any “valuable consideration.” As a 1923 Ohio case puts it, “it has value if some person or persons desire it.” \*Scott v. State \*, 197 Ohio St. 475, 487 (1923) (improper sexual relations with the offeree sufficient value for bribery conviction). This raises some factual questions about you and your relationship with your girlfriend that I’ll leave you to answer. Under the federal statute the issue is whether somebody made or offered to make an expenditure or solicits, accepts, or receives any such expenditure. I’ll leave the analysis of this question to you as well. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Gfactor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9de053/32.png) [@Gfactor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gfactor)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2008, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legality-of-selling-my-vote/436650/22 "2008-02-07T20:22:05Z")
[QUOTE=flight] Can you really be charged with fraud? My understanding is that there is never considered to have been a contract since the thing contracted for was illegal. [/QUOTE] It doesn’t talk about contracts here: > [@](#): > > Whoever, having devised or intending to devise any scheme or artifice to defraud, or for obtaining money or property by means of false or fraudulent pretenses, representations, or promises, transmits or causes to be transmitted by means of wire, radio, or television communication in interstate or foreign commerce, any writings, signs, signals, pictures, or sounds for the purpose of executing such scheme or artifice, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both. If the violation affects a financial institution, such person shall be fined not more than $1,000,000 or imprisoned not more than 30 years, or both. [http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode18/usc\_sec\_18\_00001343----000-.html](http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode18/usc_sec_18_00001343----000-.html) or here: > [@](#): > > (a) Fraud by wire, radio, or television. > (1) A person commits wire fraud when he or she: > (A) devises or intends to devise a scheme or > > artifice to defraud or to obtain money or property by means of false pretenses, representations, or promises; and > (B) (i) transmits or causes to be transmitted > > from within this State; or > (ii) transmits or causes to be transmitted > > so that it is received by a person within this State; or > (iii) transmits or causes to be transmitted > > so that it is reasonably foreseeable that it will be accessed by a person within this State: > any writings, signals, pictures, sounds, or electronic > > or electric impulses by means of wire, radio, or television communications for the purpose of executing the scheme or artifice. [Illinois General Assembly - 720 ILCS 5/ Criminal Code of 2012.](http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/ilcs/ilcs4.asp?DocName=072000050HArt%2E+17&ActID=1876&ChapAct=720%26nbsp%3BILCS%26nbsp%3B5%2F&ChapterID=53&ChapterName=CRIMINAL+OFFENSES&SectionID=60716&SeqStart=40500000&SeqEnd=44100000&ActName=Criminal+Code+of+1961%2E) Obviously the agreement would not be enforceable, but fraud is basically lying to someone to get stuff from them. It’s not about contract law. ---
**Author:** ![Bill\_Door](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@Bill\_Door](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bill_Door)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2008, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legality-of-selling-my-vote/436650/23 "2008-02-07T20:33:06Z")
What about the opposite, selling a non-vote. You’ve probably all heard the joke about someone who made a deal with someone opposing his candidate, saying that since their votes would cancel each other’s out they’d both stay home. The punch line of course is that he’d made the same deal with multiple people. Would an inducement to prevent someone voting be legal? The statutes previously cited make no mention of this. What if I went to a Clinton rally and offered people money to stay home on election day? I’m sure the government has an interest in stopping this, but I’m curious as to the means they would use. ---
**Author:** ![Gfactor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9de053/32.png) [@Gfactor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gfactor)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2008, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legality-of-selling-my-vote/436650/24 "2008-02-07T20:52:25Z")
[QUOTE=Bill Door] Would an inducement to prevent someone voting be legal? The statutes previously cited make no mention of this. . [/QUOTE] > [@](#): > > § 597. Expenditures to influence voting > > Whoever makes or offers to make an expenditure to any person, **either to vote or withhold his vote, or to vote for or against any candidate** ; and > Whoever solicits, accepts, or receives any such expenditure **in consideration of his vote or the withholding of his vote** — > Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both; and if the violation was willful, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both. (Emphasis added.) The Maryland Constitutional provision has similar language. ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2008, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legality-of-selling-my-vote/436650/25 "2008-02-07T21:12:14Z")
I still want to know why it’s illegal to offer voters a Twinkie if you do not try to extract a promise to vote a certain way in return. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2008, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legality-of-selling-my-vote/436650/26 "2008-02-07T21:55:53Z")
There is an implied promise in doing so, even if not specifically stated. Again, there’s enormous amounts of history behind this. If an oft-cited example, “George Washington, running for the Virginia House of Burgesses in 1757, is said to have handed out an average of a quart-and-a-half of rum, wine, beer or hard cider for each voter.” Offering free liquor to voters would be common for at least another century. Political machines got the votes of the poor, immigrants, and blacks by distributing food, coal, and other necessities with the understanding that they would vote for the machine’s candidates on election day. Just like vote buying, there’s no way to police implied promises on an individual scale, but these systemic handouts were made illegal for all considerations. That would include Twinkies. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2008, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legality-of-selling-my-vote/436650/27 "2008-02-07T22:09:38Z")
[QUOTE=jackdavinci] And how does one enforce vote buying anyway? Does the voter take a camera into the voting booth with them? [/QUOTE] I’m not sure about today, but as little as twenty years ago, people used the “blank ballot” scheme. The perpetrator went in to vote and never deposited his ballot. He took it outside and marked the candidates that he wished to vote for. When a person was paid, he went into the precient, got his own blank ballot, deposited the schemer’s ballot, and gave back his blank one, which the schemer marked again, rinse and repeat. So, if you gave back a blank ballot, you almost certainly deposited the marked one.. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2008, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legality-of-selling-my-vote/436650/28 "2008-02-07T22:12:22Z")
[QUOTE=Gfactor] Opportunities for one-liners abound here. Under the Illinois statute, the issue is whether there is any “valuable consideration.” As a 1923 Ohio case puts it, “it has value if some person or persons desire it.” \*Scott v. State \*, 197 Ohio St. 475, 487 (1923) (improper sexual relations with the offeree sufficient value for bribery conviction). This raises some factual questions about you and your relationship with your girlfriend that I’ll leave you to answer. Under the federal statute the issue is whether somebody made or offered to make an expenditure or solicits, accepts, or receives any such expenditure. I’ll leave the analysis of this question to you as well. 😃 [/QUOTE] What if she really didn’t want the expenditure, but it just “came” at a point in time when she was unable to refuse? 😃😃😃😃 LOL at the whole response there.. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legality-of-selling-my-vote/436650.md?page=1)