The ACLU has taken up the cause against the state of California. At issue is the free speech rights of various vote-swapping web sites. These sites differ from vote-selling web sites, which are illegal in many states. In a vote- swapping site, voters in one state swap votes with voters of another state. The example I read about are people who support Gore but would rather vote for Nader. If they vote for Nader, those lost votes could cost Gore a state or two (in contrast to Bush, who doesn't seem to have any sort of competition for Republican votes) and maybe the election. Nader needs 5% of the popular vote so that his party can get some federal matching campaign funds in the 2004 election. So people in states like Texas, where Bush will win no contest, can make their votes count by swapping votes with people in swing states.

The California laws prohibit this kind of activity. California laws are rather strict, the article I read stating that even married couples can't enter into voting pacts between themselves (this is probably an exaggeration). Since the vote-swapping sites are set up as discussion forums, the ACLU believes that they are protected by the First Amendment. Whether or not it's legal or not, my feeling is that vote-swapping is wrong. What people are doing is taking a process (voting) that's designed to take a fair measurement of what the people want, and trying to manipulate it to get the results you want. It can be argued that special interest groups and towing the party line also subvert the voting process, and I agree. It really should all be stopped, and vote-swapping sites are easier so start there...

On another story, a high-school student was suspended by his school for not accepting the Homecoming King title. Some sort of non-Homecoming King poster kid entered the running and was elected. At the announcement, where he and five other candidates were assembled on the football field, the kid won but placed his crown on the ground and walked away. The kid says he planned this to protest "popularity contests" sanctioned by the school.

So what's my take on that? Although I really want to see him punished, I don't think a suspension was called for. I don't agree with the kid at all, neither his message nor his method. His message I can't argue, everyone is entitled to their own opinion. But there are other ways of making a statement. Sure, doing it this way is dramatic and makes people take notice, but is it an appropriate thing to do? Does the guy who sets off a bomb to bring notice to his cause doing something appropriate?

I would like to think we live in a civilized society, one where people don't have to yell to be heard. If he stated his case in the school newspaper or as a Class President issue or other appropriate venue, that would have been fine. Some commentators opined that if he had done so, then it wouldn't have made the local newspaper and we wouldn't be talking about it now. But read the discussions, they're not talking about the kid's "popularity constests" issue, but whether or not he should have been suspended. My other point is that if the kid had used more conventional methods to communicate his idea and nothing came of it, then it's because it's not important enough.

Just because you have a message doesn't mean that you have to force people to listen to you. Disrupting the Homecoming game for your own selfish purposes is just wrong, and you can't justify it in my mind. The fact that he felt he had to use the homecoming game as his vehicle suggests to me that he knew his view was just not that important to most people. Sure, it's an effective way of trying to instill change. But I can't support it because it is a bludgeon that is used by people who obviously are not resourceful enough to use the existing systems correctly.