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Vote trading


Vote trading is the practice of voting for or against another person's bill, position on a more general issue, or favored candidate in exchange for the other person's vote for or against a position, proposal, or candidate that one supports. Nearly all voting systems do not make vote trading a formal process, so vote trading is very often informal and thus not binding. One form of vote trading that is formal is one that involves the trading of proxy voting rights - party A gets Party B's voting right formally, eg as a filled in proxy form with signature, perhaps authenticated by secretariats, and in this case party A may use B's vote on issue 1, and B uses A's vote on issue 2... votes traded.

Vote trading frequently occurs between and among members of legislative bodies. For example, Congressman A might vote for a dam in Congressman B's district in exchange for Congressman B's vote for farm subsidies in Congressman A's district. One of the first examples of vote trading to occur in the United States was the Compromise of 1790, in which Thomas Jefferson made a deal with James Madison and Alexander Hamilton to move the capital from New York to a site along the Potomac (after a lengthy stay in Philadelphia) in exchange for federal assumption of debts incurred by the states in the Revolutionary War. Hindrances to vote trading in the U.S. Congress include its bicameral structure and the geographic representation basis of its members. Vote trading is encouraged, however, by Congress's relatively loose party discipline which facilitates policy cross-overs by individual congressmen, in sharp contrast to European countries. In any case, vote trading is effectively a binding contract in the house , as both participants can actually see each other at the time of voting. If one party breaks their promise the other might change their vote on the issues involved in the trade, and be rather unfriendly with the other party in future.

Vote trading occasionally occurs between United States citizens domiciled in different states (and therefore citizens of those respective states) to demonstrate support for third-party candidates while minimizing the risk that their more favored (or less disfavored) major-party candidate will lose electoral votes in the nationwide election (i.e., the "spoiler effect"). For example:


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