CDR: voteauction moves offshore

anonymous at openpgp.net anonymous at openpgp.net
Tue Oct 24 13:21:50 PDT 2000


Will the Austrians treat the 
US injunction like Cryptome treats
letters from HRH?


Monday October 23 07:00 PM EDT
       Vote auction site attempts to skirt
       shutdown order 

       By Patricia Jacobus, CNET News.com

       A rogue Web site purporting to sell votes for the upcoming U.S.
       presidential election is back in operation after being shut down
       last week under a federal court order.

                        The Web site, formerly Voteauction.com, reappeared on the Net
                        over the weekend under a new address run from outside the United
                        States and beyond the easy reach of election officials.

                        "The Web site may have started as a parody, but we dont think its a
                        joke," said Thomas Leach, spokesman for the Chicago Board of
                        Elections, which last Wednesday won an injunction ordering the site
                        taken down. "Its encouraging U.S. citizens to break the law."

       The idea for the site, now Vote-auction.com, is to capitalize on undecided voters who
       planned on sitting out the November presidential election. Uncommitted voters can sell their
       votes to the Web site. The votes are then auctioned to the highest bidder, who decides which
       presidential candidate gets them.

       About 1,131 Illinois voters have participated in this questionable practice, according to the
       Web site. In California, 2,546 voters have so far taken part in the auction. Selling votes
       carries a maximum three-year federal prison term.

       It is unclear whether the votes being auctioned are legitimate. But with the balance of the
       presidential election hanging on a thin margin, the authorities arent taking any chances.

       "Could it affect the outcome of the elections? Yes," Leach said. "Should it? No."

       Created by James Baumgartner, a graduate student in New York, and later sold to a group
       of investors in Austria, the Web site has U.S. election officials up in arms.

       Authorities in New York, Illinois and California moved to shut down the site, with Chicagos
       election commission winning an injunction last week against Baumgartner, Austrian
       entrepreneur Hans Bernhard and three others, as well as Domain Bank, the registrar that
       provided the Internet address. As part of the court order, the judge specifically said
       Voteauction.com could not appear on the Net under a different name.

       After the order, Bernhard found a foreign registrar that issued a new, but slightly changed,
       Web address.

       Bernhard could not immediately be reached for comment, but information on his site
       declares that bidding on votes "works for, not against democracy." It also says he had huge
       reader support to keep the site in operation.

       Leach said the Chicago election commission has asked for help from the Austrian Embassy
       in Washington, D.C., to permanently shut down Bernhards business. The court injunction
       has also been delivered to the Ministry of Austria.

       "Theyre in defiance of a legitimate court order and in contempt of the American judicial
       system," Leach said of Bernhard and the others involved in Vote-auction.com.







More information about the cypherpunks-legacy mailing list