Quote:
Originally Posted by goober
It's two things that keep this from being a problem.
One is the cost of transporting people from state to state, feeding them, providing them with hotel rooms, etc.
That's a lot of money to spend for a vote, and a fortune to spend to get even a thousand votes this way.
Second, if you did this, you'd involve so many people that it would be all over the news and the negative effect of the story would cost you far more than the few votes you wangled this way.
Let's imagine that a person on a candidates staff did this and got caught, the one extra vote in the primary, would cost thousands of votes in the next primary.
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I don't know about those reasons preventing it from happening...
1) On transportation of the voter from state to state, those costs may be covered by the voters themselves. Of every candidates campaign, there are many volunteers that might gladly drive to a neighboring state to boost the vote total.
2) On the visibility of such an orchestration.... Again, if these people are volunteers or if they are simply showing up to rally's collecting meal tickets, while paying for their own travel and lodging, there is no direct money trail that links them to the campaign.
I think because the loophole is wide open, that it is happening. Investigative reporting is really about the only thing that might bring this to light. All that really needs to be done is to compare voting registrations between states. Likely that is confidential information so the simplest way to check it can't really be done.
I don't think of this as a whacked out conspiracy theory that can easily be dismissed. I see it as a loophole. Just as in tax law, loopholes that exist will be exploited.