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by lacampbell 3489 days ago
But vote buying is already rampant. Politicians already buy votes - promising benefits to key voting demographics, promising more or higher paying jobs for civil servants or the military, or promising lobby groups favourable laws/taxes/aid. Democracies are practically based around vote buying already. So your concern seems strange.
2 comments

Making promises that might be implemented isn't "buying" a vote. As you said, that is an intended part of democracy. Promises are not guarantees. Instead, vote buying is giving an explicit quid pro quo such as paying $10 for every "correct" vote receipt.

Yes, this doesn't fix every problem, but it does fix some problems that used to be common.

> So your concern seems strange.

Then I strongly suggest reading more about the history of voting methods and technology. (the talk in my other post has a nice overview)

We no longer have problems like offering whisky for votes or employers that threaten to fire anybody that doesn't vote a certain way (although occasionally they still try).

What a strange straw man argument you make. You feel that any time the government does something that benefits someone it is "vote buying". We're discussing the physical mechanism of voting here and you've redefined basic terms to make some kind of off-topic political point.