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this post was submitted on 20 Oct 2024
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How is this legal?
The law doesn't apply to rich people.
It's super illegal.
He's probably doing it to drive up interest and get people to register, then at the end he'll be like "sowwy guys, my lawyer says I can't :( Vote Trump to end this horrible tyranny!"
Just like when he promised to donate to end world hunger to the world food bank and then backed out.
Hmm hmm
Federal law makes it a crime to pay someone to register to vote.
Musk's scheme is to offer an incentive for signing his right wing petitions - presumably to collect names to be used for GOTV.
While he is requiring that someone has to be registered to vote to be eligible, his legal argument would be that he isn't paying anyone to actually register - just paying already registered voters to sign his petition. Rather than federal election law, the issue may rest on what PA state law says about private raffles and lotteries.
It could certainly be litigated, but there is probably enough grey area for Musk to get away with it.
But the idea that he is handing out money to collect names of people who are already very likely to vote for Trump doesn't really suggest that Musk's huge investment in his pro-Trump GOTV effort is likely to show much success.
It certainly won't get litigated in the next 2.5 weeks before election day. And if Trump wins, we know Trump's AG will not only not prosecute a thing related to Trump's friends, they will weaponize the DoJ against anyone who goes against Trump's friends.
It's not that grey. It is expressly illegal to pay someone to register to vote and a lottery prize is specifically called out in the statute as a forbidden form of compensation. It is a felony and punishable by up to 5 years in prison.
What CAH is doing is a grey area, paying people to create a voting plan isn't mentioned in the law so it skirts around the legality of it. This should probably also be illegal as a form of voter compensation but may require the law to be amended.
If you have to be a registered voter to sign the petition, you're not paying for someone to register.
Unless that individual was not already registered and did so explicitly because you offered them the opportunity to make a million dollars.
Then in that case it wouldn't be technically against federal election law as I understand it. Offering money or the chance of money to register to vote is the key to being illegal.
Citizens united