One resident of Nebraska’s Cass County was so frustrated after his absentee ballot wasn’t counted in the Nov. 2004 election, he decided to do something about it. After writing letters to a variety of media outlets and none expressed interest, he put the original letters he received from his elections officials explaining up for bidding on eBay. The documents are currently going for $28.13 , with 6 days of bidding remaining. The bidder explains:

I posted these documents on eBay because everyone in the media seems to get so excited when someone sells their family online, or advertising space on their head. No one gets excited when they get these very documents sent to them in the mail or in eMail. I thought this would give my voting problems a little more exposure, since other media outlets I have sent copies to have not responded. Ashland Gazette where are you? All profit form this sale will go to the Nebraska Green Party. They were the first ones to respond to my requests for help. Out of all the letters I sent, they were the ones who cared and showed it. They need help getting signatures on their petition in order to keep the Green Party an official political party in Nebraska with ballot access.

According to a letter the seller received from the Nebraska Secretary of State, in his county 857 voters who had signed up to vote by absentee ballots were sent substitute ballots due to an error – but only 569 of those were returned by November 2, and 288 were returned after the deadline and were not counted. The Nebraska man’s ploy is apparently working: the sale was already mentioned in the online political publication Hotline, featured in a short article in a Nebraska newspaper, and two journalists left comments asking to speak to him on the eBay listing.