Or so claims the controversial new website Voteauction.com, which hit the Internet this summer and has already drawn barrages of criticism from numerous sources. The webpage's self-professed slogan, "Bringing Capitalism and Democracy Closer Together," is a polite and rather misleading phrasing of its true intention: to sell absentee ballots to the highest bidder.

Visitors interested in selling their votes can register with Voteauction.com for the upcoming presidential elections. The votes are organized by state; for instance, as of Friday, October 13, 1836 voters from the state of California had registered. These voting blocks will then be auctioned off to corporations and individuals interested in purchasing all the votes in one state.

Voteauction.com describes itself as providing "a more efficient method for campaign investors to obtain their objectives." The site claims that "the free market will determine the value of the votes in each state." For instance, "votes in heavily populated states may be more valuable than votes in less populous states; however, if there is a large number of voteauction voters in a small state, the voteauction voters could help swing that state and thus the state's electoral votes."

According to Voteauction.com, absentee ballots for each state will be collected, verified, and then sold to the highest bidder, who "will be able to choose who the group will vote for en masse." The money from the transaction will eventually be distributed to the registered members. The current price for each of the 205 registered Voteauction.com votes in Connecticut, for example, is $15.12.

The site began as an attempt "to make a point that the campaign financing system operates as a business," founder James Baumgartner was quoted as saying in a recent AP article. The site also points out that "the United States has a long history of vote buying going back to George Washington."

Voteauction.com has come under fire for questionable legality. However, the site was sold to an Austrian businessman named Hans Bernhard on August 22, 2000 and is thus no longer based in the US. This move narrowed the number of methods the government has at its disposal to try and shut down the site.

—By Justin Chen