Gore, Nader supporters agree to swap votes online

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Some Ralph Nader supporters, with the help of specialized Web sites, are swapping their votes in states with tight Democrat-Republican margins

by Scott Harris

(IDG) -- "Nervous Naderites" who live in hotly contested swing states such as Washington and Michigan are making pledges via the Internet to swap votes with Democrats in Republican havens such as Texas, as traffic zooms on three Web sites promoting the political tactic.

The strategy, designed to simultaneously promote the Green Party's political goal of achieving 5 percent of the popular vote while enhancing Democratic presidential nominee Al Gore's chances against Republican George W. Bush, has resulted in more than 1,000 swaps so far, according to the creators of Voteexchange.org, NaderTrader.org and Voteswap2000.com.

None of the sites are sanctioned by the official Green or Democratic parties, but the deals come amid growing concern among both Gore and Nader supporters that their divide could result in a Republican triumph Nov. 7.

The idea has spurred Internet traffic since Monday, when online magazine Slate published a commentary by American University law professor Jamie Raskin that promoted the idea of a bipartisan alliance between what he called "nervous Naderites" and "despondent Democrats." Unbeknown to Raskin, two exchange sites had already been independently created.

Steve Yoder, a Washington, D.C., technical writer, launched Voteexchange.org on Oct. 1, and Jeff Cardille, an environmental studies grad student at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, had coincidentally launched NaderTrader the same day Raskin's article appeared.

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By Wednesday, Slate had linked to those sites. Then, inspired by Raskin's article, Jim Cody and Ted Johnson of Los Angeles created Voteswap2000, a site that automatically links voters who buy into the vote-swap idea. Yoder has linked his site to Voteswap2000 because of its automated features. "It's the perfect marriage of the Internet and a close political race," Yoder says.

By 4 p.m. Friday - less than 24 hours after its launch - Voteswap2000 had recorded 897 swaps. Yoder says his site, which had generated only four trades before Monday, since has counted an additional 220. Cardille, meanwhile, offers no such numbers from NaderTrader, saying his objective is to promote the idea via e-mail among only his trusted friends and family.

Traffic to all three sites has soared as the swap concept has spread via the Web. Yoder says his site, which averaged about 400 visits per day before Monday, received 1,200 on Monday, 1,600 on Tuesday, 29,500 on Wednesday and 62,000 Thursday. Cardille says traffic on NaderTrader's went from zero on Monday to 432 on Tuesday, 3,411 on Wednesday and 10,448 Thursday.

Cardille says his goal is to help the Green Party achieve a 5 percent share of the popular vote, thus ensuring that the fledgling party will receive federal matching funds in 2004 - and hopefully also capturing a Gore victory in the process.

Raskin says it's not so much the vote-swap strategy that he sees as revolutionary but more the enlightened deliberation between voters that the strategy has encouraged. "The Internet becomes something like the Senate or House floor where citizens can engage in a meaningful negotiation about our destiny," he says. "I don't think it's really vote trading, because it's all about people declaring their intentions anyway."

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