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Vote-Swapping Sites from 2000 Election Win Legal Sanction


Steadfast Nader

The law can be fickle. A website, in which voters in one state can "swap" preferred candidates with voters from another state, has just been ruled legal practice by a Federal court.
According to Ars Technica, the 2000 presidential election saw the birth of sites like Voteswap2000.com and Votexchange2000.com. Such sites allow voters in "swing" states to swap votes with those from "safe" states.

Swing-state voters were thus able to vote for third-party candidate Ralph Nader, for example, without endangering Democratic candidate Al Gore in their own arenas.

California's Secretary of State promptly called for the sites to shut down, which they did. Since then, the sites have been battling the legality of vote-swapping.

Seven years later the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that California had "violated Appellants' First Ammendment rights." Officially, online vote-swapping is constitutionally protected.

This adds a welcome window of opportunity to 2008 presidential candidates whose battles, it seems, are fought more on MySpace, mobile and YouTube than on the podium.

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