Trade votes with voters from swing states | Hacker News Reader

Trade votes with voters from swing states

pbs.org

11 pointstinbad19 comments

This is not as stupid an idea as I thought from the headline, but it still suffers from the problem that (for good reason), there is no way for a position to prove who they voted for. As such, both parties are strictly better off cheating by saying they want to trade and voting for their own preferred candidate instead.

Also, there is no way for you to verify how many trades the counter-party has entered into. It is exploitable as it stands, and more opportunities would arise if it became popular (for example, the 'safe state' assumption could be invalidated.)

The article says they met up and mailed their absentee ballots together. Maybe the trading sites could use something like a video recording of someone checking a box on their ballot and sealing it up or do a recording of them in the booth casting their ballot (state law permitting). There is still some trust involved, both people can't really vote at the same time. You have to trust the other guy will go through with it after you cast your vote first but it's no different than buying and trading used goods on forums. Although on forums, people are usually making exchanges more often than once every 4 years so someone can build a trustworthy reputation.

Yeah, mailing in your absentee ballots together could work - I assume that the people on apps aren't doing that because it would be difficult for most people to travel to another state.

That said, anything that allows you to prove who you voted for is a flaw in the design of the voting system anyway, so to the extent that there are loopholes that allow this, one would hope that they will be fixed.

As for reputation - reputation systems rely on the ability to verify that something has already been completed. If you order something online and never receive it, you are able to complain and cause reputational damage to the seller. In the case of vote-swapping, you shouldn't ever be able to know whether or not the other person voted the way they said they did, so you never actually know that the other person is untrustworthy.

Fighting 'anti-democracy' with anti-democracy.. Disgusting.

We just need to remove the Electoral College and use a straightforward majority wins (or plurality, as the case may be).

Wondering how/if this strategy could help voters in safely Republican states who wish to make a dent in that safety.

Is this a legal strategy? It seems illegal.

On what grounds are you thinking there's anything illegal happening here?

You are selling your vote. Where im from (denmark) thats highly illegal. Its also illegal to document what you voted for, to insure you cant sell your vote.

There is no vote-selling happening here. No money or anything of value is changing hands. People are promising, and expecting the other to make good on the promise, to exchange votes. This is an exercising of one's right to free speech and engage in the voting process, and was declared protected by the First Amendment in Porter v. Bowen.

Edit: Porter v. Bowen was a federal Appeals Court ruling, so it isn't a SCOTUS-level, nationwide decision. But it certainly establishes precedent, and could potentially be used by those who wish to challenge any state laws that expressly prohibit vote-swapping as a restriction of their First Amendment rights.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/net_election...

Technically, tampering. Yet-to-be-adjudicated in the same way as someone doing something illegal doesn't always get prosecuted because stare decisis (or political backlash) is so crazy-overused that you rather avoid going forward than lose on technnicalities or by a small margin.

Swapping your vote is not technically tampering. And the practice has been adjudicated. See Porter v. Bowen. Of course, since that was only an Appeals Court ruling and not SCOTUS, the legality is strictly dependent upon your state and whether it has laws on the books expressly prohibiting swapping. But, those laws could be challenged if one desired to put Porter v. Bowen to the test.

PS: The article you linked dates from 2000. Porter v. Bowen was in 2007. You really ought to check the dates on things you read. A lot has changed in 16 years. Look at Citizens United.

Definitely illegal. However, it'll get a pass like everything else illegal done this election.

This is definitively legal. The Ninth Circuit ruled so in 2007. You're making a strong claim, and you cannot back this claim up at all.

Vote-swapping is not a new thing. There's even case law that supports it as a clear exercise of one's First Amendment rights. See Porter v. Bowen. You might not like it, but that has no bearing on its legality.

That site is operating outside in regions outside the Ninth Circuit's jurisdiction, including in places where it is definitively illegal.

Apparently I'm not the only one making strong claims today.

So, you're just doubling down on your claims without providing any kind of counter evidence? Your initial statement was vote-swapping was definitely illegal. Now, you're walking back and revising to say it is definitively illegal in certain regions.

What jurisdictions outside the Ninth Circuit have expressly forbidden the practice of vote-swapping? I've performed a cursory search of US laws against vote-pairing and vote-swapping. I have found nothing. Please, share your knowledge of what parts of the US have enacted legislation that makes non-pecuniary pairing/swapping illegal.

Based on what evidence I can find, I'm making no strong claims. Please point me in the right direction to revise my understanding, if it is indeed in error.

According to Popehat, it's legal.

https://popehat.com/2016/11/05/randazza-vote-swapping-trump-...

everything looks like a market when all you have is a hayekian ideology

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