Oops Thats a Felony.

Fargo, ND. Max Sanders, a University of Minnesota student who tried to sell his vote on eBay for a minimum of $10, got no offers, but he did get charged with a felony.

This from the state that elected Jesse Ventura. We should all be charged with felonies!

The rules were simple enough, Max Sanders wrote on the online auction posting.

The 19-year-old University of Minnesota student was undecided in the presidential election. So for a minimum of $10, he’d vote for whomever you liked, or, if you so chose, for no one at all.

He’d even go so far as to photograph himself in the voting booth with his ballot. On May 28, he put his vote up for bid.

“Good luck!” Sanders wrote for good measure under the eBay handle zepdrummer612. “You’re [sic] country depends on You!”

Now Sanders, who told investigators that the posting was merely a joke, faces a felony charge.

“We take it very seriously. Fundamentally, we believe it is wrong to sell your vote,” said John Aiken, director of communications for the Minnesota secretary of state’s office. “There are people that have died for this country for our right to vote, and to take something that lightly, to say, ‘I can be bought.’

“It’s a real shame,” he said. “I can imagine the conversations being held in American Legion Clubs and VFWs about whether this is a joke or not.”

Sanders, a liberal arts major from Edina, was charged Thursday with one count of bribery, treating and soliciting, a felony under an 1893 Minnesota law that makes it a crime to offer to buy or sell a vote. The scarcely used law had its heyday in the 1920s, when many people sold their votes in exchange for liquor, said assistant Hennepin County Attorney Pat Diamond. As far as he knows, the case is one of a kind in modern times, he said.

The investigation began when the California Secretary of State’s office discovered the posting and tipped off Minnesota’s office. That office in turn notified the Hennepin County attorney, who contacted eBay to ascertain Sanders’ identity.

According to a criminal complaint, an investigator contacted Sanders, who confirmed that he made the posting, adding, “That was a joke. It’s no longer listed.”

Sanders agreed to meet with investigators but later rescinded.

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