The classic legislative def'n of electoral bribery (in Australia at least)
is a mere offer of valuable consideration to induce a change in electoral
conduct (public policy promises aside).  We had a case of Labor Party
operatives running a 'dummy' independent candidature recently.  The
difficulty would be in proving when the money was more than mere assistance
with expenditure for someone who was minded to run anyway, and when the
money was such as to have corruptly influenced (does it depend on the
amount of money?  or whether the assistance was a sine qua non of the
candidature?  what of tangible in-kind support?)  If you didn't have
first-past-the-post voting some of the sting would be taken out of this.
But then even in Australia with both compulsory voting and compulsory
preferences, this just shifts the 'bribing' a step down so that we had a
serious case of a Labor party leader giving cash (in an envelope) to a
Democrats candidate around the time that preference recommendations were
being decided.   At least I suppose that was money between sympatico
parties - whereas Republicans aiding Greens for spoiler purposes is pure
cynicism.   I'm v.interested in others analysis of the legal
arguments or any US case law as i'm doing a PhD on electoral bribery.

Graeme Orr
Griffith Law School
Brisbane  Australia
g.orr@mailbox.gu.edu.au