Campaigns Condemn Vote Market

A service making it possible for students to buy and sell Undergraduate Council (UC) votes was introduced yesterday and immediately denounced by the Election Commission as well as all three presidential and vice-presidential tickets.

The campaign managers for the three tickets have all gone on the record to say that their campaigns will not buy or sell votes and any campaign worker who does so will be fired.

“We hope that students realize that though the buying and selling may be legal, it is certainly immoral and unethical,” said Gabriel M. Scheinmann ’08, campaign manager of the Magnus Grimeland ’07-Thomas D. Hadfield ’08 ticket.

The service, which was advertised in an e-mail sent to various House lists, pairs interested buyers and sellers of UC votes.

In order to participate, students who wish to buy or sell send e-mails to a specific gmail account stating the lowest price they are willing to accept if they are a seller and the highest price they are willing to pay if they are a buyer, according to the personal website of Aleksei Boiko ’06, who created the service.

After bidding closes at 11:59 p.m. today, the service will match compatible buyers and sellers. Those who sell their vote may be asked to vote in the presence of a vote market representative, according to the website, which also says that a PayPal account has been set up to facilitate the transactions between buyers and sellers.

Michael B. Love ’08, the chair of the Election Commission, called the service “completely undemocratic” and vowed to limit its effect as much as possible.

“If we find that a campaign is engaging in purchasing or selling votes, then the punishment would almost certainly be disqualification,” he said.

Love said that the commission can only penalize campaigns, not students, and that the commission will therefore have to seek help in minimizing the impact of this new service.

“We’re exploring our possibilities of working with the Harvard and UC administrations to make sure that student activities don’t compromise the fairness of the election,” Love said.

Boiko, who is also a Crimson editor, said he initiated the exchange system in order to create a free market.

“I’m doing this as a service to the community,” he said.

Boiko said that he has no affiliation with any campaign or the UC, and that he did not consider the creation of this service to violate any ethics.

“My personal view is that markets are a fair thing, and setting this up is not unethical. Whether people choose to enter this market or not is their individual decision,” he said. “If I find out that this is illegal, or if it breaks any University regulations, I’ll of course stop the whole thing.”

While Boiko declined to provide specifics as to the number of students participating in the market, he said he did not feel that the number was enough to have a significant impact on the election.

Boiko did say that students have been willing to sell their votes for a wide range of prices and that more students have been willing to sell votes than buy votes.

He said, however, that some students have e-mailed him to rescind their offer to sell their votes.

UC President Matthew J. Glazer ’06 said that the service is contrary to the spirit of this election.

“I strongly feel this is unethical, and I know a lot of students feel the same,” he said.