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PaperclipPerfector  24d ago (text post)   34278 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 28, 2024

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In the past Federal election cycle, I organized Reddit vote swaps via TheMotte subreddit. This cycle, there's a new game in town: https://www.swapyourvote.org

Under the vote swap system, one swing state voter agrees to vote for Kamala Harris and is matched with two safe state voters, who vote for a third party of the swing state voter's choice.

In my case, the swing state voter doesn't have a preference, so I get to vote for Chase Oliver, my preferred candidate, while also securing a critical swing state vote to take a shot at defeating Trump in that state.

Exchanging votes is completely legal and is the only real way to secure support for alternative viewpoints until we can get approval voting on the Federal level.

  • -34

how is this legal? it seems like the legal theory is just add 'in minecraft' after the illegal act and then its ok. the people involved are very clearly receiving consideration for their vote as long as the 'in minecraft' clause was not added.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/597

Whoever makes or offers to make an expenditure to any person, either to vote or withhold his vote, or to vote for or against any candidate; and Whoever solicits, accepts, or receives any such expenditure in consideration of his vote or the withholding of his vote—

https://www.thefederalcriminalattorneys.com/expenditures-to-influence-voting

In simpler terms, this means it is illegal for anyone to use money or anything of value to influence someone's vote.

i'm going to solicit people to kill other people but make them check a box that says 'in minecraft' or 'this does not really create a legal agreement' and everything is ok.

ah: i missed the link that explains the courts have decided no money involved no problem:

https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2007/08/06/0655517.pdf

Whatever the wisdom of using vote-swapping agreements to communicate these positions, such agreements plainly differ from conventional (and illegal) vote buying, which conveys no message other than the parties’ willingness to exchange votes for money (or some other form of private profit). The Supreme Court held in Brown v. Hartlage, 456 U.S. 45, 55 (1982), that vote buying may be banned “without trenching on any right of association protected by the First Amendment.” Vote swapping, however, is more akin to the candidate’s pledge in Brown to take a pay cut if elected, which the Court concluded was constitutionally protected, than to unprotected vote buying. Like the candidate’s pledge, vote swapping involves a “promise to confer some ultimate benefit on the voter, qua . . . citizen[ ] or member of the general public” — i.e., another person’s agreement to vote for particular candidate. Id. at 58-59. And unlike vote buying, vote swapping is not an “illegal exchange for private profit” since the only benefit a vote swapper can receive is a marginally higher probability that his preferred electoral outcome will come to pass. Id. at 55 (emphasis added); cf. Marc John

an expenditure

money or anything of value

Not under discussion by OP. Am I missing some obvious transfer of money or valuables here?

This isn't really the right place for this kind of thing. We are a discussion forum, not a place for organizing political action.

If you want to discuss that website, or discuss who you prefer for president, or discuss why we need approval voting all those are fine.

I accept your swap and will vote for whatever candidate I was going to vote for anyway. Thank you for being a stooge.

You are my 117th swap so far this election.

It is entirely possible that I am too election-brained to understand the logic here at the moment, but I am a bit confused at the premise. If there is a relatively large percentage of third party votes in safe blue (or safe red) states, but a very low percentage of third party votes in swing states, literally nobody who matters will be fooled. It will be plainly obvious that voters who have a strong preference for one party over the other, and who could be relied upon to turn out for their preferred side in the event of a close election, are casting meaningless throwaway votes.

It shows that people who "can be relied upon to turn out" would prefer a third party if they didn't feel like they "had to" vote against whoever they hate, like if their state ever went ranked choice. Without the vote swapping, they hold their nose and their third party signal vanishes. It does nothing for this particular election, but it maybe, just maybe, increases the odds of escaping the two party trap in the future.

We won't escape it. Duverger's law. What third party votes actually do is signal that there's a body of people who have a different set of preferences (with some very vague gesture as to what those might be) whose votes might be worth attempting to appeal to in future elections.

Eh. Find a website that matches me with someone in my state who is voting the exact opposite slate that I am so we can both stay home rather than wasting time on a vote that would just cancel each other out.

I just don't see how you could expect people to follow through. There's no possible enforcement mechanism.

If I know the identity of my counterparty, it should in theory be possible to check whether they cast a vote or stayed home as agreed.

Not sure what the proper penalty would be.

If you're charged for voting, and not charged for not voting, I think the courts would see that as vote buying.

While exchanging (promises of) votes is completely legal, there is of course no possible enforcement for this, right?

Joe Blue could easily create many sockpuppet accounts, claim to be in a safe state, and farm a bunch of swing state votes without providing any corresponding value to any 3rd party?

I get to vote for Chase Oliver, my preferred candidate, while also securing a critical swing state vote to take a shot at defeating Trump in that state.

It is interesting to see how they try to balance the affinity between the Libertarian Party and the Republican Party with the assumption that the Republican Party needs to be defeated.

We are not matching [safe state] voters from red states (like Texas) … unite to advance a non-fascist, forward-thinking agenda for a more just and fair world.

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