VoteAuction closes down Political Speech10/21/2000; 1:26:49 PM 'Most important, he said, neither he nor Austrian owner Hans Bernhard -- who declined comment when contacted Friday -- ever intended to go through with actually trafficking the votes bought and sold. '"It was never my intent to sell votes," Baumgartner said. "And it was clear when I was setting it up with Hans that he and I had the same principles in mind. We were both doing this as a political satire or media intervention kind of thing."'Maybe it's just me, but satire ought to be clearly labelled. Some satire is so satirical that it sort of labels itself... but if you've got a site that claims to be doing good business in something as illegal as vote trafficking, and shows no hint of humor or amusement, then you better be labelling the site as satire before you get convicted of a crime. I'm certainly still open to the idea that profit was the intent and it simply failed to gain any.