Elon Musk has announced a $1m (£766,000) giveaway to registered voters in Pennsylvania until the US presidential election in November. The winner will be chosen at random from those who sign a pro-constitution petition by Musk’s campaign group AmericaPAC, which he set up to support Republican nominee Donald Trump’s bid to return to the White House. The first lottery-style check was given away to a surprised-looking attendee at a town hall event on Saturday night.
The giveaway will effectively encourage potential Trump voters to engage in the campaign during the tense final weeks of the presidential race ahead of the vote on 5 November. Election law expert Rick Hasen wrote on his personal Election Law Blog that he believed Musk’s offer was “clearly illegal”. Federal law states anyone who “pays or offers to pay or accepts payment either for registration to vote or for voting” faces a potential $10,000 fine or five-year prison sentence.
Musk had previously offered to give $47 to anyone who got a registered swing-state voter to sign the petition. That strategy raised eyebrows from campaign finance experts like Hansen but could fall under a loophole under US election law because no-one was being directly paid to vote despite introducing money into a process that could identify likely Trump voters. In the US, it is illegal to provide payments to get people to vote, not only for a certain candidate but to simply cast a ballot.
Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro called Musk’s strategy “deeply concerning” and suggested law enforcement should potentially look at the payments. Musk launched AmericaPAC in July with the aim of supporting the former president’s campaign and has donated $75m to the group, which has quickly become a central player in Trump’s election campaign.
(BBC)
