8 ms·

So what's the difference between paying someone $10 to vote and deducting $10 from a commercial purchase to vote?

by gragas 10y ago

mkagenius 10y ago
You get data in the latter.
- samstave 10y ago
  I've always wondered why there isnt a secure site which will ask for some portion of your SSN/all your SSN (and handle it securely, encrypted ONLY to verify uniqueness of the entry) which would then ask you simply which candidate you voted for so as to keep a "checksum" of sorts of what % of voters voted for whom. So if that system - with ensured unique entries was way off what the national results show, we would know that there was a problem, Houston. Heck - just make it a mobile app actually that just takes a picture of your ballot and DOESNT ID you - but you take a pick of the ballot in the booth and it reads it and tracks your entry.
  - maxerickson 10y ago
    What benefit would any of that offer over exit polling? As far as I thought it through, the voter can lie in all 3 cases.
    - michaelmior 10y ago
      It deals with the case where the voter is truthful but the system does not accurately report the ballots cast. Of course you have a new system to trust now under such a scheme.
  - oakesm9 10y ago
    Pretty much the same arguments against e-voting apply to this I think https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3_0x6oaDmI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3_0x6oaDmI
  - inimino 10y ago
    > way off what the national results show, we would know that there was a problem Nope, you'd just know that your system isn't used by a representative sample of the population, which it wouldn't be. This is the same reason why self-selected online polling isn't reliable.
tetrep 10y ago
Well, in the case of this promotion, there's no promise or proof of vote: Albeit this offer for a day is supposed to assist you in obtaining polls, there was nothing actually prevents you from taking a ride at a reduced price elsewhere during those hours.
- SOLAR_FIELDS 10y ago
  When the whole Uber/Lyft proposition vote debacle happened in Austin, they offered a similar discount. The discount was for inbound rides to the polling location. Obviously they couldn't force you to vote once you arrived at the location, but if the discount destinations are limited it would somewhat help to prevent abuse.
ARCarr 10y ago
I don't think paying somebody to vote is a crime. Telling them to vote for a particular person is, though.
- gragas 10y ago
  What if you're specifically targeting a demographic or subset of people that are more likely to vote one way than the other?
  - r00fus 10y ago
    Again, not a crime, or, in my view even ethically hazardous. If voting is such a burden that offering discount on rides improves our voting turnout - sounds to me like that's fixing a problem as opposed to fixing an election. Voting is key to the democratic process. The fact that one party prefers to tell people NOT to vote is more worrying to me than increasing turnout.
- maxerickson 10y ago
  Yes it is. So is accepting the payment. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/597 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/597 As a sibling to your comment points out, the discount isn't in exchange for voting.
  - ARCarr 10y ago
    This is good to know! Thanks!
SilasX 10y ago
As sibling comments note, it's not a crime to provide material rewards (probably including cash) to vote, so long as it's not for voting a specific way (e.g. show me a trump ballot and you get a free coffee). EDIT: see response thread, that's illegal too but IMHO doesn't affect the point. I still see it as a loophole for getting money into politics: if a maybe-voting demographic that leans toward party X also shops at Y, then Y's reward for voting is going to differentially help party X. E.g. since Starbucks patrons probably lean Democrat, Starbucks's free-coffee-for-voting probably does have "disparate impact" favoring Democrats, even if the free coffee is not conditional on who you voted for. Then you can go one step removed: if rich billionaires want the Democrat to win, they can approach similar establishments and offer to pay for the cost of their "free X for voting". Boom, a money vector that will survive a Citizen's United reversal. Then what? Do you require such efforts to bankroll similar offers at coffee places with opposite demographics? Or prohibit any rewards for voting?
- maxerickson 10y ago
  The way I read the statute I linked, paying someone to vote is illegal. But Lyft isn't paying people to vote, they are making it cheaper to gain proximity to the polling place. If they made the discount conditional on voting, it would be illegal.
  - SilasX 10y ago
    Ah okay I had remembered Starbucks doing this promotion but it seems they pulled it back due to election laws: http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2008/11/03/starbucks-offers-free-coffee-to-voters-on-election-day/ http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2008/11/03/starbucks-offers-fr... It's kind of a distinction without a difference though: like in the Lyft case, you can give a material reward for going 90% of the way to a vote, and the influence on the election is the same.
    - maxerickson 10y ago
      It's kind of a distinction without a difference though I disagree. Whether the offer is conditional is a simple and effective test to catch all the problematic cases, it just happens to erroneously catch free coffee if you have a sticker. So the difference is that one of the activities falls on the wrong side of the test.
shalmanese 10y ago
4 years ago, Lyft tried to do a promotion where if you "share a photo of you voting", you got a free ride. After informing them that it was technically illegal, they amended the promotion to "share a fun photo of your election day spirit" which stayed within the bounds of the law.

So what's the difference between paying someone $10 to vote and deducting $10 from a commercial purchase to vote?

by gragas 10y ago

So what's the difference between paying someone $10 to vote and deducting $10 from a commercial purchase to vote?

mkagenius 10y ago

You get data in the latter.

samstave 10y ago
I've always wondered why there isnt a secure site which will ask for some portion of your SSN/all your SSN (and handle it securely, encrypted ONLY to verify uniqueness of the entry) which would then ask you simply which candidate you voted for so as to keep a "checksum" of sorts of what % of voters voted for whom. So if that system - with ensured unique entries was way off what the national results show, we would know that there was a problem, Houston. Heck - just make it a mobile app actually that just takes a picture of your ballot and DOESNT ID you - but you take a pick of the ballot in the booth and it reads it and tracks your entry.
- maxerickson 10y ago
  What benefit would any of that offer over exit polling? As far as I thought it through, the voter can lie in all 3 cases.
  - michaelmior 10y ago
    It deals with the case where the voter is truthful but the system does not accurately report the ballots cast. Of course you have a new system to trust now under such a scheme.
- oakesm9 10y ago
  Pretty much the same arguments against e-voting apply to this I think https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3_0x6oaDmI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3_0x6oaDmI
- inimino 10y ago
  > way off what the national results show, we would know that there was a problem Nope, you'd just know that your system isn't used by a representative sample of the population, which it wouldn't be. This is the same reason why self-selected online polling isn't reliable.

tetrep 10y ago

Well, in the case of this promotion, there's no promise or proof of vote: Albeit this offer for a day is supposed to assist you in obtaining polls, there was nothing actually prevents you from taking a ride at a reduced price elsewhere during those hours.

SOLAR_FIELDS 10y ago
When the whole Uber/Lyft proposition vote debacle happened in Austin, they offered a similar discount. The discount was for inbound rides to the polling location. Obviously they couldn't force you to vote once you arrived at the location, but if the discount destinations are limited it would somewhat help to prevent abuse.

ARCarr 10y ago

I don't think paying somebody to vote is a crime. Telling them to vote for a particular person is, though.

gragas 10y ago
What if you're specifically targeting a demographic or subset of people that are more likely to vote one way than the other?
- r00fus 10y ago
  Again, not a crime, or, in my view even ethically hazardous. If voting is such a burden that offering discount on rides improves our voting turnout - sounds to me like that's fixing a problem as opposed to fixing an election. Voting is key to the democratic process. The fact that one party prefers to tell people NOT to vote is more worrying to me than increasing turnout.
maxerickson 10y ago
Yes it is. So is accepting the payment. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/597 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/597 As a sibling to your comment points out, the discount isn't in exchange for voting.
- ARCarr 10y ago
  This is good to know! Thanks!

SilasX 10y ago

As sibling comments note, it's not a crime to provide material rewards (probably including cash) to vote, so long as it's not for voting a specific way (e.g. show me a trump ballot and you get a free coffee). EDIT: see response thread, that's illegal too but IMHO doesn't affect the point. I still see it as a loophole for getting money into politics: if a maybe-voting demographic that leans toward party X also shops at Y, then Y's reward for voting is going to differentially help party X. E.g. since Starbucks patrons probably lean Democrat, Starbucks's free-coffee-for-voting probably does have "disparate impact" favoring Democrats, even if the free coffee is not conditional on who you voted for. Then you can go one step removed: if rich billionaires want the Democrat to win, they can approach similar establishments and offer to pay for the cost of their "free X for voting". Boom, a money vector that will survive a Citizen's United reversal. Then what? Do you require such efforts to bankroll similar offers at coffee places with opposite demographics? Or prohibit any rewards for voting?

maxerickson 10y ago
The way I read the statute I linked, paying someone to vote is illegal. But Lyft isn't paying people to vote, they are making it cheaper to gain proximity to the polling place. If they made the discount conditional on voting, it would be illegal.
- SilasX 10y ago
  Ah okay I had remembered Starbucks doing this promotion but it seems they pulled it back due to election laws: http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2008/11/03/starbucks-offers-free-coffee-to-voters-on-election-day/ http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2008/11/03/starbucks-offers-fr... It's kind of a distinction without a difference though: like in the Lyft case, you can give a material reward for going 90% of the way to a vote, and the influence on the election is the same.
  - maxerickson 10y ago
    It's kind of a distinction without a difference though I disagree. Whether the offer is conditional is a simple and effective test to catch all the problematic cases, it just happens to erroneously catch free coffee if you have a sticker. So the difference is that one of the activities falls on the wrong side of the test.

shalmanese 10y ago

4 years ago, Lyft tried to do a promotion where if you "share a photo of you voting", you got a free ride. After informing them that it was technically illegal, they amended the promotion to "share a fun photo of your election day spirit" which stayed within the bounds of the law.