NewsMax.com
Friday, Nov. 3, 2000

Faced with what amounts to vote swapping, Democrat Attorney General Janet Reno on Thursday merely urged those Gore and Nader supporters trying to trade votes on the Internet to use "caution."

California Secretary of State Bill Jones, however, ordered the shutdown of www.voteswap2000.com, a site that offered voters a way of supporting Ralph Nader’s presidential bid while still voting for Al Gore.

In this Web site, and others like it, people in states up for grabs agree to vote for Gore if voters in states deemed safe for Gore agree to vote for Nader. This would help Gore win the toss-up states and help Nader get enough votes, 5 percent, to qualify the Green Party for taxpayer funds in the next election.

Another vote-swap Web site that calls itself NaderTrader explains that a Nader Trader is "someone who is leaning toward Ralph Nader in a swing state, but agrees to discuss his or her vote with a Gore-voting friend in a state that's strongly expected to go for Bush."

"In other words, you might want to vote for Gore in your swing state, while your friend casts a vote for Nader in a Bush-safe state, where it will not do harm to the Gore-Lieberman ticket.

"It's an easy way to tip the electoral balance away from Bush while preserving the national totals for the Green Party. If enough people consider this option, there is a very real chance that the Green Party's power will be increased AND that George W. Bush and his cronies will be kept out of the White House."

The site lists the toss-up states and other states considered safe for Gore. It ends with this plea: "A vote for Nader on November 7 does not have to put George W. Bush in the White House. If you live in a heavily contested swing state and would like to see Nader and the Green Party have a stronger voice, you have a real choice.

"No matter where you live, your vote will be extremely powerful in this election. If you don't want to see George W. Bush controlling environmental policy, the Supreme Court, reproductive rights, civil rights laws, and the budget surplus, contact a friend and be a Nader Trader!"

Vote-Buying Site Closed

A Europe-based Web site claiming to buy and sell votes for the U.S. presidential election closed down Wednesday under pressure from Chicago election officials.

The Chicago Board of Election Commissioners, which sued to shut down the site, said it was assured by the site's Swiss registrar, CORE Internet Council of Registrar, that vote-auction.com would be taken off the Web, according to the Associated Press.

The AP reported that the site was created by a student at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y., James Baumgartner, who said he did it as a spoof to "evoke public commentary concerning an issue which is at the core of this nation's democracy, whether or not elections are for sale.''

Bernhard had claimed to have been offered $260,000 for more than 21,000 votes. Votes were being offered in blocs by state, according to the AP. For example, the highest bidder for Michigan, a battleground state with 18 electoral votes, could direct 1,429 votes to any candidate. The current top bid for those votes was $28,000, the Bernhard site recently claimed without offering any proof.

Not surprisingly, the left-leaning American Civil Liberties Union has sprung to the defense of Bernhard’s outrageous Web site and www.voteswap2000.com.

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
Presidential Race 2000
George W. Bush
Al Gore
Ralph Nader