[EAS]Votes for Sale

[pjk]

Subject:   Votes for Sale

Dear Colleagues -

My "Site for Thieves" mailing about burglar.com shocked some of
my readers. What is next, they asked. Another of my colleagues
provides a timely answer 

http://www.voteauction.com/

about a site where you can sell your vote. He comments

> Apparently it has been getting a lot of attention in Chicago which
> was already in the midst of an absentee ballot scandal.  Here in
> Oregon where we have just converted ALL elections to vote-by-mail,
> virtually every ballot is available.  This site shows nearly 400
> ballots currently for sale in Oregon.  This isn't a huge number,
> but we have a US congresswoman in the Portland area who won with a
> smaller margin than this two years ago.  To date there has been no
> significant evidence of fraud in our voting, but it doesn't seem
> like it would take too much effort to convince useful numbers of
> disinterested voters to sell their signed but unmarked ballots.


Modern information technology is like a fluid that seeps into the
interstices of our social structures, sometimes as a welcome
lubricant, sometimes as a corrosive solvent.

   --PJK

 --------------------------------------------------------------------
|  Peter J. Kindlmann     |  Prof.(Adjunct), Director of Undergrad.  |
|  Dept. of Elect. Engrg. |  Studies and the Morse Teaching Center   |
|  Yale University        |  tel.(203)432-4294, fax (203)458-3803    |
|  New Haven, CT 06520    |  email: pjk at design.eng.yale.edu          |
|        http://www.eng.yale.edu/EE-Labs/morse/about/pjk.html        |
 --------------------------------------------------------------------