Superior Court judge yesterday issued an injunction ordering the shutdown of a controversial Web site that says it auctions votes to the highest bidder, even as prosecutors acknowledged that the ruling may be largely toothless.
The site, on which more than 1,100 Massachusetts residents have registered to sell votes for bids as high as $13,000, is run by an Austrian on a Bulgarian server.
''It's a concern that the people do operate overseas,'' said Assistant Attorney General David Kerrigan. ''But the court found that they should not be operating the site. ... and one hopes they would abide by what the court has ordered.''
The site's Web address has changed several times, but it has been located at voteauction.com and vote-auction.com. According to the site, the winning bidder from each state will decide how the entire group of registered voters from that state will vote.
Selling, buying, or bidding on votes is illegal in Massachusetts.
Kerrigan declined to comment on whether the attorney general's office would seek to prosecute Massachusetts residents who have registered on the site, though they are unknown to prosecutors.
Officials in Illinois, Nebraska, and California are also investigating the site, suing, or preparing lawsuits against it.
The site's owner, Hans Bernhard of Vienna, Austria, said it merely cuts out the middleman in the election process, arguing that special interest groups give money to the candidates who spend it on advertising to win over votes.
Material from the Associated Press was used in this report.
