eBay preserving democracy, well belatedly at any rate

Seems that the eBay bots have closed off the Seanad Election vote auction, no feedback barring the auto-emailer response so one has to wonder if there is a human involved in the process or if its merely an immediate suspension whilst the item is investigated. Just in case anyone missed the actual page, I've preserved a screendump for posterity and potential future prosecutions.

Speaking of legalise, the P.ie crowd, in particular Rebelman, who posted that yes it is illegal to sell your vote and that the person can be prosecuted under 1992 Electoral Act. The particular paragraph of reference is:

Section 25 (2) In addition and without prejudice to the provisions of the foregoing subsection of this section, every statutory provision for the time being in force relating to bribery, personation or other offences at elections of members of Dáil Éireann shall apply to elections in university constituencies as if these elections were elections of members.

According to Rebelman, "the crime would actually be personation by the third party involved and the sale would have directly facilitated this".

This leads back to a piece on Sunday's Tribune where Kevin Rafter offered his vote for sale, I'm very sure that reading the comments on his blog in reaction to his article that Kevin will take the correct action and immediately withdraw his vote from sale and print an apology in his next piece as otherwise one wonders if he may face a similar prosecution under the 1992 Electoral Act.

UPDATE: This story is now on today's (Friday's) front page of the Irish Times.