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| Politics News - updated 1:24 PM ET Aug 22 |
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| Reuters | AP | Elections | ABCNews | ||
Web Sites Offer Votes For Sale
By ANICK JESDANUN, AP Internet Writer NEW YORK (AP) - Who says money can't buy votes? Six people offered to sell their vote for president on the Internet this week, fetching as much as $10,100 before online auctioneer eBay canceled the bidding. Meanwhile, another site is soliciting undecided voters to offer as a block to the highest bidder for each state. By Friday, bidders already offered $100 each for New York and California, which together have 87 of the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency. Federal and state laws prohibit the sale of votes, and eBay said it is cooperating with investigators from the Justice Department and Washington state, the home of one attempted seller. ``We'd like to think we've got a good sense of humor, ... but these are people who are dealing with violations of federal law,'' eBay spokesman Kevin Pursglove said. ``It's very serious.'' An eBay user first notified the company about a sale on Wednesday night, Pursglove said. He said eBay found and canceled others on Thursday because they violate company policies prohibiting sales of illegal goods. The site does not preapprove auctions, but will stop them if they violate its policies. One offering under the header ``Vote of One US Citizen'' received 20 bids, the highest for $10,100. Another individual got one bid for $1, and a third received a bid for 99 cents. Three others had no bids, according to eBay records. Justice Department officials did not return a call Friday about the auctions. Advocates of overhauling campaign finance already believe votes are for sale - to the largest campaign contributors. Sheila Krumholz, research director at the Center for Responsive Politics in Washington, said these attempted sales could be no more than an expression of frustration with the political system. ``Choices and votes are being made or at least impacted by money and by moneyed interests,'' she said. ``Everybody knows money has had an undeniable impact in the system today.'' But Deborah Phillips, chairwoman of the Voting Integrity Project in Arlington, Va., worried that such efforts undermine trust in elections, even if they are no more than an expression of frustration. ``It is just further contributing to this increased sense of cynicism that's so pervasive in America today - that my vote doesn't matter,'' she said. ``It does matter a lot, and ordinary citizens should be outraged by this.'' Voteauction.com, the site taking bids by state, promises to collect votes by absentee ballot, verify them and mail them ``to the appropriate election district.'' ``The election industry is spending hundreds of millions of dollars in an attempt to influence the presidential election,'' organizers said in a statement. ``This system is an inefficient waste of money for the candidates and their supporters.'' The site aims to improve the system ``by bringing the campaign contributors' money directly to the voters.'' - On the Net: eBay: http://ebay.com/ Center for Responsive Politics: http://opensecrets.org/ Voting Integrity Project: http://votingintegrity.org/.
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