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Straight Talk from Voteauction.com by Chris Connor August 18, 2000, 3 p.m. PT If the pandering and vaudeville antics of the Republican and Democratic conventions inspired you with nausea instead of idealism, you're not alone. The politicians spend millions of tax dollars and corporate and special interest contributions to purchase your vote; sadly that green goes to consultants and ad geeks. You, the taxpayer who finances the monkey show, now has a chance to partake of the corruption that is politics. Voteauction.com (click here for a mirror site) puts the power in your hands--and the cash in your wallet--allowing you to sell your vote directly to the entity that is ready to shell out. As the site says: "The election industry is spending hundreds of millions of dollars in an attempt to influence the presidential election. This system is an inefficient waste of money for the candidates and their supporters. Voteauction.com is committed to improving this system by bringing the campaign contributors' money directly to the voters." They also post a history of vote-purchasing starting in the days of old George Washington. To sell their voties, users must first register at Voteauction.com, giving their name and address. Whoever bids the most for Voteauction.com's users, which are broken down by electoral district, will be able to choose the candidate the group will vote for en masse via absentee ballot. The winnings will be split equally among each state's Voteauction.com voters. "The free market will determine the value of the votes in each state," Voteauction.com explains."Votes in heavily populated states may be may be more valuable than votes in less populous states, however, if there is a large number of voteauction voters in a small state, the voteauction voters could help swing that state and thus the state's electoral votes." The starting bid for voteauction.com's votes is $100, with a minimum bid increase of $50. Individuals, corporations, and organizations must first register in order to bid. In related news, those Honest Abes over at eBay have done it again, halting auctions by people trying to sell their votes in the upcoming U.S. presidential election. Apparently the Department of Justice and the Federal Elections Commission are investigating. Yahoo was also investigating a vote up for auction. Voteauction.com did not respond to emails by press time, so it's unclear whether it is also facing flak from the feds for its Web site. But this afternoon it was experiencing very heavy traffic, with more than 200 people registering to sell their vote in one day. Related News Collectibles Get Political

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