California - They Love Their Ignorance

That video doesn't even purport to show people being paid to vote. It alleges that she paid people to register to vote and/or sign her petition

Paid signature gatherers are commonly used by both "conservatives" and "liberals" for petitions. 

The fraud alleged here is that this particular signature gatherer was paying people to register to vote so that they could then sign the petition. She was cutting them in on the money she makes per signature. She was caught and prosecuted. 

Is it illegal to pay people to register to vote, or to offer them non-monetary assistance therefor (like transportation, help in obtaining and explaining ballots, etc.)? I would expect that it isn't against the law to help people exercise their rights.

And another Facebook post, what do you expect.   He takes everything that's posted there at face value, and believes it.  And he calls it proof.  SMH

LiveFree, you are the man.  Keep showing him the error of his ways. 

Yes. In California it is illegal to pay someone to register to vote and it is illegal to pay someone to sign a petition.

Paying someone to register also violates federal law but the constitutionality is arguable

It could be reasonably argued that giving someone a bus ticket still qualifies as paying them to register or vote. As bus fare could be argued as a "valuable consideration". 

18603. Every person who offers or gives money or other valuable

consideration to another in exchange for his or her signature on a

state, county, municipal, or district initiative, referendum, or

recall petition is guilty of a misdemeanor.

A person who knowingly or willfully pays or offers to pay money or other valuable consideration to another person with the intent to induce the person to vote or to register to vote, or where the payment is contingent upon whether the person voted or the person’s voter registration status, is guilty of a crime. (§ 18107.5(a)(1).)

https://law.justia.com/codes/california/2010/elec/18600-18604.html

https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/publications-and-resources/elections-officers-digest/penalty-provisions

Seems odd. Assisting or inducing a person to exercise their rights shouldn't be a crime. I can see what generated the law you cite, in that conservatives have always been against people voting and many laws, even in California, were created by conservatives and/or to placate conservatives.

I would think that increasing the number of citizens who are registered to vote is a net positive, and improves the "body politic," so I truly don't see any justification for making this a crime. Oh, well.

If I remember correctly the federal legislation was passed as part of The Voters Rights Act of 1965 and signed into law by Johnson.

Institutionalized vote buying was relatively common. Large groups found it beneficial to pay disenfranchised people to either not vote or vote a certain way.

Putting a couple dinners on the table for a few thousand poor starving people was a cheaper and more effective way of swaying a vote than campaigning. 

The California law prohibiting paying someone to register was past recently with near unanimous bipartisan support in the Senate and The State Assembly 

I guess this would be hard to research, but what was the argument in favor of such a law? What terrible terrible terrible thing were those people who paid or otherwise encouraged voters doing?

I don't see any difference between buying someone a meal or pelting them with TV, radio, internet, etc. propaganda...or holding rallies...or putting up signs. In all cases, you're providing something interesting or pleasurable in order to encourage people to vote; and yes, you hope it's for YOUR candidate, but as long as you don't attach that string to it, I don't see the harm, or the supposed unethicality (is that a word?).

And I do know that in the not too recent past, political organizers would send a bus around (or earlier, a carriage), pick up potential voters, ply them with drinks, feed them, and conveniently drop them off at the nearest polling station. That was eventually decried as unduly influencing voters...but I don't see any real distinction between that and all the other devices used to encourage them. Mass media flogging may be more impersonal than buying someone lunch, but in the end, isn't it really the same thing?

Just my thoughts on the matter.