{"id":15181,"date":"2024-10-29T17:37:01","date_gmt":"2024-10-29T17:37:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=15181"},"modified":"2024-10-29T17:37:01","modified_gmt":"2024-10-29T17:37:01","slug":"elon-musk-says-hes-giving-away-1-million-a-day-to-voters-is-that-legal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=15181","title":{"rendered":"Elon Musk says he\u2019s giving away $1 million a day to voters. Is that legal?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

“The program works like this: Registered voters in Arizona, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, or Wisconsin \u2014 all swing states that could go for either Vice President Kamala Harris or Trump come Election Day \u2014 can sign the petition<\/a>, which claims to be a \u201cPetition in Favor of Free Speech and the Right to Bear Arms\u201d until Monday, October 21, which happens to be the voter registration deadline in Pennsylvania<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The petition is being circulated by Musk\u2019s America PAC, which has taken over much of Trump\u2019s ground operation in key swing states<\/a>. Musk has made Pennsylvania a particular focus of his personal outreach, hosting events there, including one on Sunday<\/a> where he handed a woman in a Trump-Vance shirt a giant $1 million check.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though the petition does not require signers to be registered Republicans, the focus on the First and Second Amendments does seem to appeal to potential Trump voters who fear Democrats will take away their gun rights and who subscribe to Musk\u2019s idea of \u201cfree speech<\/a>.\u201d The net effect, then, is that Musk is promising $1 million a day to a program aimed at getting pro-Trump voters registered in swing states.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because his contest is only open to registered voters, there may be a case for it to be understood as an illegal financial incentive to get people to register to vote, as Public Citizen\u2019s complaint alleges. One issue Musk faces, said David Becker<\/a>, executive director of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation & Research, is that what constitutes payment for voting-related activity has been broadly interpreted in the past.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis could involve anything of value,\u201d Becker said. The law \u201chas been applied to things like Ben & Jerry\u2019s offering everyone who has an \u2018I Voted\u2019 sticker an ice cream cone on Election Day<\/a>. They received a cease-and-desist letter and changed [the promotion to give] everyone a free ice cream cone on Election Day.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is some ambiguity in Musk\u2019s promotion, compared to what Ben & Jerry\u2019s offered, however. The uncertainty arises from the fact that Musk\u2019s PAC is asking people to sign a petition for the chance to win $1 million, not explicitly rewarding them for registering to vote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Daniel Weiner<\/a>, director of the Brennan Center\u2019s Elections & Government Program, told Vox that the issue at hand really comes down to whether entering a specific group of people in a lottery if they sign a petition counts as paying people to register to vote.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.vox.com\/politics\/378912\/musk-trump-voting-contest-million-dollars-swing-state-lottery-pennsylvania<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“The program works like this: Registered voters in Arizona, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, or Wisconsin \u2014 all swing states that could go for either Vice President Kamala Harris or Trump come Election Day \u2014 can sign the petition, which claims to be a \u201cPetition in Favor of Free Speech and the Right to Bear Arms\u201d until Monday, October 21, which happens to be the voter registration deadline in Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n

The petition is being circulated by Musk\u2019s America PAC, which has taken over much of Trump\u2019s ground operation in key swing states. Musk has made Pennsylvania a particular focus of his personal outreach, hosting events there, including one on Sunday where he handed a woman in a Trump-Vance shirt a giant $1 million check.<\/p>\n

Though the petition does not require signers to be registered Republicans, the focus on the First and Second Amendments does seem to appeal to potential Trump voters who fear Democrats will take away their gun rights and who subscribe to Musk\u2019s idea of \u201cfree speech.\u201d The net effect, then, is that Musk is promising $1 million a day to a program aimed at getting pro-Trump voters registered in swing states.<\/p>\n

Because his contest is only open to registered voters, there may be a case for it to be understood as an illegal financial incentive to get people to register to vote, as Public Citizen\u2019s complaint alleges. One issue Musk faces, said David Becker, executive director of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation & Research, is that what constitutes payment for voting-related activity has been broadly interpreted in the past.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis could involve anything of value,\u201d Becker said. The law \u201chas been applied to things like Ben & Jerry\u2019s offering everyone who has an \u2018I Voted\u2019 sticker an ice cream cone on Election Day. They received a cease-and-desist letter and changed [the promotion to give] everyone a free ice cream cone on Election Day.\u201d<\/p>\n

There is some ambiguity in Musk\u2019s promotion, compared to what Ben & Jerry\u2019s offered, however. The uncertainty arises from the fact that Musk\u2019s PAC is asking people to sign a petition for the chance to win $1 million, not explicitly rewarding them for registering to vote.<\/p>\n

Daniel Weiner, director of the Brennan Center\u2019s Elections & Government Program, told Vox that the issue at hand really comes down to whether entering a specific group of people in a lottery if they sign a petition counts as paying people to register to vote.”<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.vox.com\/politics\/378912\/musk-trump-voting-contest-million-dollars-swing-state-lottery-pennsylvania<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[790,372,1598,1213,200,386],"class_list":["post-15181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-share","tag-courts","tag-election","tag-elon-musk","tag-judiciary","tag-law","tag-voters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15181"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15181\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15182,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15181\/revisions\/15182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}