Courts assail online vote-swap and auction sites November 7, 2000 Web posted at: 11:45 AM EST (1645 GMT) From staff and wire reports Courts on both sides of the nation issued rulings ahead of the Tuesday elections unfavorable to Web sites that encourage voters to swap presidential ballots for political or financial gain. In Los Angeles, a federal judge refused to stop state officials from cracking down on California-based Web sites that let users in one state trade their vote for president to someone in another state. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Southern California had sought to get a temporary restraining order, arguing Secretary of State Bill Jones actions were an unconstitutional restriction of free speech. U.S. District Judge Robert Kelleher denied the request in a ruling issued Monday night. The Web sites seek to have Green Party candidate Ralph Nader supporters cast their votes for Vice President Al Gore in states where the presidential race is expected to be close. In exchange, Democrats agree to vote for Nader in states where Republican George W. Bush is expected to win. The trades, not sanctioned by the campaigns, could help Gore in swing states and give the Green Party the 5 percent of the national vote it needs to win federal campaign money. Three sites voluntarily shut down last week after Jones told one it was violating state election laws. Officials in Oregon have issued similar warnings. Jones hailed the ruling. "Votes are not a commodity," he said. "In California, it is illegal to buy, sell or trade votes for anything of value -- including another vote." The ACLU said it would appeal, saying such exchanges between voters are protected and that agreeing to a voting strategy is different from offering payment for a vote. Massachusetts goes after vote auctioneers State officials in Massachusetts did not try to halt two so-called "Nader Trader" Web sites, www.winwincampaign.org and www.nadertrader.com. The activity on both sites was described as voluntary and involved no contract or exchange of money. "You cant give away your vote for something of value, but because there is no material gain, its not ... clearly in violation of federal law," said Harvard Law School professor Jonathan Zittrain. Under federal law, buying and selling votes is punishable by up to five years in prison, $10,000 in fines or both. However, a Massachusetts judge on Monday temporarily halted an Austrian Web site owner from buying or selling votes in the U.S. presidential election. Suffolk Superior Court Judge Maria Lopez granted an injunction against "the people operating this Web site and anybody else" who attempted to operate the site or sell their vote. Hans Bernhard of Vienna, Austria, who was identified as owning the site, had no representative at the hearing. Prosecutors told Lopez that as of Monday morning 1,116 state voters had registered with the site that was offering a total of $13,000 for their votes. The order meant Massachusetts joined Illinois, California and Nebraska in trying to shut down the Web site. The sites domain name has changed several times since been subjected to legal challenges in U.S. courts in recent weeks. It began as voteauction.com and last week was vote-auction.com. Following a temporary shutdown, the content of the site was resurrected by using a pure Internet protocol (IP) address (devoid of a domain name) and was still on the Web as of Tuesday morning. David Kerrigan, the Massachusetts state assistant attorney general, said his office did not know the identities of the voters who registered with the site, but hoped that the operator "will abide by the court order." Bernhard could not be reached for comment. http://www.cnn.com/2000/TECH/computing/11/07/internet.vote/index.html