Rich Zeoli: Vote Trading Is 'The Craziest Thing I've Ever Heard'
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - The phenomenon of 'vote-trading' among third party voters has re-emerged this election cycle where supporters of Jill Stein or Gary Johnson that live in swing states pair up with someone online from a safe state for Hillary Clinton and agree to trade votes in order to stop Donald Trump.
Rich Zeoli discussed the trading of votes and an app that connects voters with other will participants on Talk Radio 1210 WPHT, dismissing the practice as idiocy.
"I think it's the craziest thing I've ever heard...I'm in New Jersey and my vote doesn't count, so theoretically, I could get in on this action and then I would vote for Gary Johnson, theoretically to send a message, trade with somebody in a swing state to stop Trump. I'm not going to. I'm going to vote for Trump, but I'm saying that's how this action works. Isn't that something?"
He suggested Trump supporters should take advantage of naive 'vote traders' by agreeing to a swap, then still voting for the GOP nominee on Tuesday.
"You pretend like you're a Clinton supporter, you go on these stupid sites and now you're pledging these votes and these idiots will waste their vote out there in California or wherever...Right now, this is sort of a subculture that people don't know about. I want people to know about it so you can know what's happening and you can fight back with it...Nothing precludes you from going on there yourself and pretending, hey, I'm in Pennsylvania any my vote can go for anybody so I'll trade and then you secretly go in there and vote for Trump. It's the honor system."
Zeoli discovered the trading of votes is perfectly legal and has even been addressed by the courts.
"This is a clearly protected First Amendment right. You're allowed to do this. It's not illegal for you to trade your vote with somebody in another state. How about that? It's amazing. It went all the way up to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, Porter v. Bowen, which established vote trading as clearly protected by the First Amendment. To date, it's the only authoritative legal case on the record of the topic."
