How to Buy My Ballot

I vote by mail-in-ballot (MIB) but I consider this a real time bomb. Once you lose secrecy, I believe you open the door to all kinds of mischief.

The most extreme might be the possibility of folks selling their ballots. A lot of folks might gladly sell their votes for $5 or maybe for a raffle ticket.

So, I wondered, what would happen if I announced here that my vote for Governor was up for bid. I would offer to vote for whoever the high bidder wanted. I asked blogdom's major legal scholar, Roger Rabbit from HorsesAss, whether this was legal. Here is the eared one's answer:

"You can try to persuade someone else to vote for or against a candidate or ballot proposition, or not vote at all, provided the means used are merely promotional or persuasive and not menacing, coercive, or an offer to exchange something of value. You can show your ballot to someone else if you want to. I don’t see anything in the laws that would prevent you from holding a “voting party” where like-minded voters mark their ballots together, perhaps even in a drunken state. So far as I know, no law requires voters to be sober or of sound mind when they mark their ballots, nor do I know of any law that prohibits consuming beer, potato chips, and/or appetizers while marking a mail-in ballot. I believe you could ask a chicken to scratch her feet on the candidates you should vote for, if you wanted to. Nothing in the law prevents you from moistening the envelope sealing strip with whale piss."

Ok. So, I wonder if the crowd at DL would be interested in this idea ... free beer for your vote. On free beer night, you need to bring in a ballot to get a free beer and show everyone HOW you are voting.

You want my vote? I promise NOT to vote for whoever buys me a drink (wink). Does this sound a little like bringing lobbying to the roots? As Hillary says, "you certainly do not imagine I would sell my vote for County Prosecutor for a beer?"