Voteauction was a Website which offered US citizens to sell their presidential vote to the highest bidder during the Presidential Elections 2000, Al Gore vs. G.W. Bush.

The Website was conceived by the student James Baumgartner and then sold to the austrian business-artists Hans Bernhard (founder of etoy) and Lizvlx from Ubermorgen[1] in Austria and (V)ote-auction Inc. in Sofia/Bulgaria [a subsidiary of the ubermorgen group] for a undisclosed sum. It was ubermorgens feature Media Hacking performance in the year 2000.

Several US States (Missouri, Wisconsin, Chicago, Arizona, Nevada, California, Massachusetts, New York) issued temporary restraining orders or injunctions for alleged illegal vote trading. This led to the shutdown of 2 domains (voteauction.com and vote-auction.com). Federal Attorney Janet Reno, the FBI and the NSA were investigating the case to ensure the integrity of the voting process on november 7th, 2000.

Over 1800 global and national News features in online media, print, television and radio have been reported (including a 27 min. CNN exclusive "Burden of Proof").

"[V]ote-Auction" is one of most risky and paradoxically successful projects by ubermorgen: it is "the only platform in the world that provide the final consumer an effective role in the American election industry". A true interchange system that finally "brings capitalism and democracy closer together" [2].

ubermorgen exhibited the [V]ote-auction CNN tape, Voteauction-Seals and (F)original Documents in the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum 2001, The Premises Gallery Johannesburg 2002, Museu d`Art Contemporani de Barcelona 2003, Read_me 2.4 Helsinki 2003, Konsthall Malmoe 2004, Kunsthaus Graz 2004.

A follow up "legal art" action called "the injunction generator" [3] was awarded with a "Honorary Mention" at the Prix Ars Electronica 2003. It generates court orders (i.e. temporary injunctions) and sends them out per email to the owner and domain-registrar to shutdown domains.

External link

(V)ote-Auction - voteauction

ubermorgen

(F)originals / Documents

Injunction Generator