The Southern California branch of the American Civil Liberties Union has filed a temporary restraining order against the state of California in order to get three "vote swap" sites back online.

The state of Wisconsin, meanwhile, is threatening legal action against vote-auction.com , a site already under legal duress from the Chicago Board of Elections, which had the Web site's operations frozen after determining that it was breaking the law by exchanging money for peoples' votes.

And in a departure from generally established procedure, Wisconsin Attorney General James Doyle also named Austria's Silverserver Internet service provider (ISP) and Germany's CSL G.m.b.H. ISP as defendants for respectively hosting the vote-auction site and registering the domain name.

In a press conference on Thursday, the ACLU announced that the temporary restraining order will be filed against California Secretary of State Bill Jones for "threatening criminal prosecution" against the voteswap2000 Web site.

After Jones filed his notice, the Web site operators shut their sites down for fear of prosecution.

"The ACLU maintains that Web sites were engaged in constitutionally protected activities," said an ACLU Southern California statement.

Jones said that the Web sites violated a state statute, but an ACLU spokesperson questioned whether this is actually true.

The Web site operators had previously said that they thought they were in compliance with the letter of the law, but the three sites--voteswap2000.com, nadertrader.org and voteexchange.com--all advised potential users that they should consult with their own counsel before taking any action.

The concept of vote-swapping surfaced in an article written for Slate magazine by American University law professor Jamie Raskin.

The idea is that people planning to vote for Ralph Nader in states where Gore's bid for the presidency is hotly contested by Bush, instead find a friend in a safe Gore state who is voting for Nader. They then switch their votes so that Gore gains a lead over Bush in the contested states, while Nader supporters ensure that the Green Party gains a minimum 5 percent of votes necessary in other states to qualify for campaign contribution matching funds in the next presidential election in 2004.

The vote-auction.com site is a different concept than the Nader sites, offering a cash-for-vote system.

Secretary of State Jones earlier this month said that the state has taken action to shut down voteauction.com, calling the idea of vote buying and selling "one of the most serious political crimes in California and the United States because it strikes at the heart of our democracy."

"Votes are not for sale while I'm secretary of state," he said in a statement.

In the Wisconsin case, Doyle said that, although vote-auction.com's owner, Austrian businessman Luzius Bernhard, is not operating in the state, his activities are directly targeted toward Wisconsin voters. He also said that the ISPs should be held responsible for "actions directed toward Wisconsin."

After Chicago shut down the "voteauction.com" site, it was transferred to Bernhard, who reregistered under the vote-auction.com handle.

The Wisconsin case, which seeks injunctions against the ISPs for hosting Bernhard and registering his name, and Bernhard himself for conducting the site, will be heard on Nov. 7 in the Dane County Circuit Court.

Reported by Newsbytes.com, http://www.newsbytes.com.