Musk’s $1 Million Voters Lottery Sparks Legal Debates
Elon Musk, certainly no stranger to controversy, has upped the ante with his latest antics. He’s giving away a million dollars daily to registered voters in Pennsylvania who sign his petition, spurring allegations of election interference and vote buying. He plans to do the same in other battleground states.
Is Elon Musk Buying Votes? © Photo by ProLife on Freeimages.com
Is Elon Musk Buying Votes- Daily Million Dollar Giveaway Raises Eyebrows
Elon Musk has found a new way to interject himself yet again into the 2024 election cycle, in case he hadn’t made his preferences perfectly clear with the tens of millions in political donations, joining Trump onstage at some rallies, and throwing his hat into the ring for a cabinet position. And in typical Muskian style, it’s nothing if not bold. The question is, however, is it legal?
The broad outline is that if you are a registered voter in Pennsylvania, and you sign a petition being promoted by his PAC, you get $100, and if you refer anyone and they sign, you get another $100.
Then, as a bonus, they will draw a name each day to win one million dollars. The petition itself seems to be less than important, and it turns out that matters when it comes down to the legality of the entire scheme.
With mounting criticism and possible legal action, Elon’s PAC has made some minor tweaks in the past few days to bolster slightly their somewhat shaky legal standing. For instance, the million dollars is now a salary paid to the winner of the sweepstakes to act as a spokesperson for the PAC.
This is a sort of last ditch legal maneuver to obfuscate the fact that cash appears to be given. Nonetheless, it encourages people to register to vote and instead postures these people are rewarded with a well-paid spokesperson position.
What Does Election Law Have to Say?
Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro made his beliefs on the matter quite clear, calling for an investigation over the weekend. Then, on Monday, a group of former Republicans, mostly attorneys and other public officials, also came out with a letter asking the Justice Department to act immediately on what it called deeply troubling violations of election law.
“We urge you to investigate whether America PAC’s payments are prohibited payments for voter registration. We recognize that they are framed as payments for signing a petition, or for referring voters who sign. But many of the payments are restricted to registered voters, so anyone who wishes to get paid must first register. To facilitate that, the petition webpage includes links to voter registration websites for each of the seven states, directly alongside the offer of payment. And the signing and referral payments are available only until October 21, the registration cutoff date in Pennsylvania.”– Letter TO DOJ, Former Republican Officials
The law states that anyone who “pays or offers to pay or accepts payment either for registration to vote or for voting” is at risk of a potential $10,000 fine or a five-year prison sentence. (52 U.S.C. 10307). Even the use of lottery chances is discussed as illegal in the DOJ’s own manual on election crimes. Since Musk’s PAC requires all signatories to be registered to vote, the premise is that he is illegally rewarding people by using cash payments and sweepstakes chances.
On the other hand, some legal analysts say that without direct payments actually to entice voters to register or vote, the petition skirts a grey line. This argues the group of Republicans asking for a DOJ investigation is where the actual substance of the petition itself comes in.
While the petition purports to signal support not only for the Constitution but also Free Speech and 2nd Amendment rights, it is, at best, vague. The letter sent by the Republicans to DOJ describes it as “bland” and goes on to state that it appears to be a stalking horse for a camouflaged voter registration drive. They further point out that it is not in support of an actual amendment to state law and that even the names of those who have signed aren’t disclosed, so it affords little in the way of public support.
While we wait for DOJ and other enforcement agencies to weigh in, one thing remains certain: we haven’t heard the last out of Elon Musk ahead of November 5th, nor from his many detractors.
