Even in Chicago, where voting shenanigans are legend, the sheer gall of Voteauction.com is impressive.
As its name suggests, the Web site puts a new twist to cyber-commerce. If you don’t care all that much about your presidential vote this November, the site invites you to offer it for sale to someone who does.
Think of it as an eBay for ballot box stuffers. There’s just one hitch, of course. It’s no less illegal than any other vote-buying scheme.
Yet, if Voteauction.com is supposed to be some sort of joke, a lot of people are taking it very seriously. New York, where graduate student James Baumgartner founded the site in August, banned it. But a group of European investors later purchased it, and more than 1,500 people, including more than 1,000 in Illinois, are reported to have put their votes up for bid nationwide.
The scheme calls for sellers to send their votes by absentee ballot to the Web site, which will forward the ballots to election officials.
But those plans appear to be headed for the graveyard. A Cook County Circuit Court judge this week ordered that the site be shut down, in response to a lawsuit filed by the Chicago Board of Elections. Chicago officials also referred the matter to federal investigators. On Friday the site appeared to be kaput, though deceased Web sites have a habit of popping up anew.
The Internet offers fine opportunities for commerce, but democracy should not be for sale through any medium. Votes are something money should not be able to buy, not even on the Internet. Candidates need to get their votes the old-fashioned way, from one voter at a time, with no cash or cyber-IOU’s attached.
