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Comment by closeparen | Hacker News Reader

>An individual running for a seat in the House or Senate or for the office of U.S. President becomes a candidate when he or she raises or spends more than $5,000 in contributions or expenditures.

One generally needs a certain number of petition signatures to appear on a ballot, but apparently not needed just to legally be a candidate.

https://www.fec.gov/help-candidates-and-committees/registeri...

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Do you have to actually spend that $5000? Or can you just have it "raised"?

Create a nonprofit to accept the "raised" contribution, and then swap it with another candidate in the pool for "consulting fees"...

> Create a nonprofit

I like the enthusiasm, but this would get you slapped by the IRS (eventually). Any other ideas?

Maybe if we just pay each other in a ring through a legal escrow? Everyone puts in $5,001, the escrow pays everyone back $5000.

So we start a party where we all sign to get each other on the ballot and donate to a pool that allocates $5k to each of us? Can this $5k just be moved around per candidate which counts as spending?

This would become a problem if someone just joined the party with the intent of cashing out the 5k$ and leaving. Maybe you could fix this somehow with smart contracts? idk

Legal escrow! No smart contracts needed

if you cash out the $5k you lose candidate status.

“Fine by me, I’m $5k richer now!”

Assign it but don’t physically give it to them?

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