Vote Swapping (not a debate!)

[Feralpeg]

I don't want to start a debate on this. I just think this is interesting. I heard on the news today that there is a website that let's people from different states get together to swap votes. For instance, Texas would normally be a safe state for Bush. Assume that a person in Texas wants to vote for Kerry. Assume that there is someone in Florida that wants to vote for Nader. Neither persons vote will count for much if they vote in their own state. So they arrange to swap votes. The person in Texas agrees to vote for Nader. The person in Florida agrees to vote for Kerry. Interesting. So far, they have about 2000 people who've agreed to vote swap. Not really enought to make much of a difference.

 

[Keli]

I think our founding fathers set up the electorial college for a reason and this would circumvent that reason. It's so that heavily populated states can't completely dominate the wishes of less populated states. If people in rual or less populated areas trade their vote with someone from NYC, SF, Dallas, etc then they are foolishly giving away a protection that our founding fathers gave us.

Then the real meat of the issue is there is no way to know if the person you traded your vote with actually voted the way you wanted them to. Nope, under present circumstances I don't think this is likely to take off.