To be more blunt: it usually doesn't affect me directly. Or if it does, it does only in a diffuse kind of way. I don't love it, but I can't get myself too exercised about it. The effort to reward ratio of trying to fix it seems too high.

But election law forces me to notice. If he gets away with buying an election, there is a very direct and personal impact. And "getting away with it" includes being able to buy his way out with a fine -- even a fine that would utterly destroy me.

Which means that it crosses that bar -- it justifies a lot of effort to try to fix it. And a vast amount of effort is going to be required.

The legal argument is that it is illegal to buy votes or pay for someone to register to vote...but signing a petition is not voting and the article says the petition is only open to registered voters.