See also:
Thousands Sign Up to Sell VotesAustrian Takes Bids on U.S. VotesVoteauction Bids the DustClose Vote? You Can Bid on It
The site asks voters to fill out personal details and then offers
to sell the votes in blocks broken down by state to the highest
bidder. The technique, the website says, brings the "big money of
campaigns directly to the voting public."
The site offers to deliver the votes to any corporation or
individual, but it hasn't identified voters, bidders or said when
the sale will end.
The owners say the U.S. vote auction is a test to determine how
they can make money. They still need to work out how voters would be
paid and how to verify that they cast the right ballot.
Election officials in Michigan and New York have criticized the
scheme and a court challenge in Illinois led to the closing of the
old site. California Secretary of State Bill Jones warned any vote
sellers they could face felony charges and a minimum of three years
in prison.
The site was reopened this week with the help of CSL Computer
Service of Germany. By Thursday, more than 2,500 California voters
had offered their votes and the leading bid was $48,000 or $19.61
per vote.
"Truthfully, this could probably go on forever, so long as it is
known by those who wish to use the service, for lack of a better
term," said Steve Jones, a professor at the University of Illinois,
Chicago, who follows the Internet.
Shad Balch, a spokesman for California's secretary of state, said
the domain name change would not affect California's investigation
into the site and its employees.
He said investigators have found a way to identify users but
would not go into details. Bernhard said the site's message board
had been taken offline to protect users from the investigation.
Industry experts say it would be almost impossible to identify
voters by using technology.
"There is virtually no legal way to check who is using the site
without a subpoena or warrant, which is unlikely when the operations
are international," said Stewart Farley of Internet Products Inc., a
San Diego company that makes Web-filtering products.
The original website was launched by a New York graduate student
who sold the site in August after he was threatened with legal
action by New York state officials.
Internet auction site eBay has also had to wrangle with potential
vote selling. In August, six people offering to sell their votes for
president drew bids as high as $10,100 before the online auctioneer
shut them down.
Copyright © 2000
Associated Press
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