Court Rules For Vote Swapping Website

from the that-took-a-while dept

Only two plus years after it happened, a US court has ruled that putting up a vote swapping website is perfectly legal. There had been a big controversy during the 2000 elections when people in states where the political race was close started to "trade" their third-party Nader votes online to states where the outcome wasn't in doubt - as an attempt to prevent Bush from winning (as he was considered the more evil of the two major candidates). The website was forced offline by the California Secretary of State, but the court is now saying that this was a violation of the website owner's freedom of speech. The ruling, by the court of appeals, actually just sends the case back to the lower court to be reconsidered on a First Amendment basis, but the overall point seems pretty clear. Of course, this doesn't say whether or not it's legal to actually swap the votes... but putting up the website is a First Amendment right.

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