In Defense of Vote Buying: How 'Nader Traders' Can Defeat Rent Seeking

29 Pages Posted: 10 Aug 2007

Abstract

This Article examines the merits of vote buying at a more detailed level than has been done previously. Various scenarios are played-out of how an actual election would function if vote buying were permitted. The Article concludes, in line with past scholarship, but for different reasons, that the monetary purchasing of votes should be outlawed because of the rent-seeking effects such purchases will cause. It then applies this analysis to the "Nader Traders" controversy of the 2000 Presidential Election, and concludes that the trading of votes for other votes should be legal. This is because the same rent-seeking effects that arise out of buying votes for money do not arise out of buying votes with other votes.

Keywords: vote buying, election law, nader, gore, bush, vote swapping

JEL Classification: D72

Suggested Citation

Sanders, Anthony B., In Defense of Vote Buying: How 'Nader Traders' Can Defeat Rent Seeking. Hamline Journal of Public Law and Policy, Vol. 26, No. 43, 2004, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1005450

Anthony B. Sanders (Contact Author)

Institute for Justice ( email )

901 N. Glebe Rd.
Suite 900
Arlington, VA 22203
United States

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