Online auctions will be conducted at Voteauction.com state-by-state in September and October, he continued. The blocks of votes will be marketed primarily to businesses and interest groups -- Voteauction does not plan to court the candidates themselves.

The kitty for each state will be split among the Voteauction voters in that state. And the winner of each state's auction will then be able to cast its procured ballots for the contender of its choosing.

Raskin audibly shuddered when he heard the process spelled out.

"That sounds pretty serious," he said. "It's possible that some aggressive prosecutor could try to bring solicitation charges against him just for setting up the possibility of this scheme."

For American historical precedent, Baumgartner cites the 1757 Virginia House of Burgesses race in which George Washington bought each of the 391 voters in his district a quart and a half of alcohol in exchange for their support.

And, of course, the presidential Iowa straw poll offers hardly little more than an opportunity to exchange money for political positioning.

Yet no American example Baumgartner can point to even approaches the proposed scope of Voteauction.com. For something of similar magnitude, one must look overseas to cases in India, Montenegro, Japan, Morocco, or Taiwan.

Given that upwards of 100 million potential eligible voters won't be casting their ballots this November, Baumgartner said perhaps an appeal to the bottom line might get them to the booth.

"Right now the corporations are just passing money around to other corporations," he said. "One corporation is giving money to the campaign, and the campaign is turning around and giving money to television stations, advertising agencies, consultants, things like that. The money is not reaching the people at all. It's leaving them out of the equation."

Raskin concurred. "If this is intended as a cyber satire on the commodification of American politics, one can only applaud the spirit of the authors," he said.

"Right now everyone is making money off elections except the voters.... Everyone is enjoying a lavishly subsidized ride on the back of the American people, and it is ironic that we have replaced old-fashioned vote-buying and bribery with much more sophisticated forms of financial takeover of the electoral process."

Paul Rapp, Albany attorney and thesis advisor to Baumgartner, did caution that individuals participating in Voteauction.com could technically be putting themselves in legal jeopardy.

"Then again, it strikes me that it's on the same level as the Napster controversy," he said. "If you're downloading a song, what is realistically the possibility that Lars Ulrich and the Feds are going to bust your door down and drag you off to art jail? Highly unlikely.

"It would be a victory for James if it generated the same sort of discussion about the nature of our democracy that Napster has had on the nature of ownership of music," said Rapp. "I suspect if James got the sort of traffic that Napster got, one of two things would happen. He would either be facing a considerable jail sentence, or he would become one of the most powerful men in America."