Dude, who even knows.

13th November 2022

Question reblogged from The Prey Of Aimless Days with 96 notes

Anonymous asked:

It's illegal to directly buy votes. But suppose you created a scheme where you pick polling places in areas likely to vote for you and say that everyone who votes there gets $50 when they walk out regardless of who they voted for. Would that be legal? Would it be effective?

afloweroutofstone:

Intriguing thought experiment! Without knowing the exact law around this, I’m guessing that it would be illegal to make the $50 contingent on voting, but you could probably get away with a scheme that offers people cash for arriving at a polling place, regardless of whether they vote or not. You’d have a lot of waste from people taking the cash without voting, but if even a small portion of those you gave cash to voted despite having little prior intention of doing so, you might be able to throw some smaller elections like that. I’m sure people would still try to find some way to sue you for it though

I mean you can definitely give people rides to the polls in limos with free liquor, they still do that in the barely-any-residents industrial towns outside of downtown LA.

  1. artechouse reblogged this from afloweroutofstone and added:
    I’m no legal expert, but I *think* there’s a way to do this by reimbursing transportation. As you said, you can’t pay...
  2. theskoomacat said: Legality aside, the people who would come voting for $50 might have a different candidate preference than the population that usually votes and generates the statistics that tell you to use this area for this experiment. You can also do this for voter turnout. In Russia the govt usually entices people to come to the polling places with entertainment, food, etc (well, not free but they are set up there on purpose) so that enough people vote for the election to be legal.
  3. lord-megatr0n said: This happens all the time in south asia. You can get money/petrol/chicken/alcohol for voting and joining rallies of particular party
  4. nv8red reblogged this from cop-disliker69
  5. wolvesandvoices reblogged this from cop-disliker69
  6. afloweroutofstone said: I am not certain you would lose
  7. afloweroutofstone said: @amphora-emoji Surely, but the question is whether or not you would win that case
  8. fysyx reblogged this from afloweroutofstone
  9. cop-disliker69 reblogged this from afloweroutofstone and added:
    Aren’t there all those laws against giving food and even bottled water to people in line at polling places? I’m sure...