Justice Department warns Elon Musk that his $1 million giveaway to registered voters may be illegal | CNN Politics
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The Justice Department warned Elon Musk’s America PAC in recent days that his $1 million sweepstakes to registered voters in swing states may violate federal law, people briefed on the matter told CNN.
  • _bcron_@lemmy.worldEnglish
    521·
    29 days ago

    Pussyfooting about something is condoning it. It’s the justice department and they can’t make a binary yes/no conclusion on the legality of this? “We’re warning you that you may get in trouble” is a green light to continue, they said it themselves, it’s merely questionable, and Elon Musk has infinite resources to have a legal team spin it all back on the DOJ

    • shalafi@lemmy.worldEnglish
      12·
      29 days ago

      Can you make an argument that it’s illegal? Chapter and verse, what’s the law being violated?

      He holding a lottery for petition signers. A first-year law student could fight this.

      I’d seriously like to hear from you guys as to the violation here. May be some angle I don’t know about.

      • Furbag@lemmy.world
        2·
        29 days ago

        Okay, I’ll make an argument. Here’s the law in question per another Lemmy user down below, seen it in several threads already:

        52 U.S.C. 10307©: “Whoever knowingly or willfully gives false information as to his name, address or period of residence in the voting district for the purpose of establishing his eligibility to register or vote, or conspires with another individual for the purpose of encouraging his false registration to vote or illegal voting, or pays or offers to pay or accepts payment either for registration to vote or for voting shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than five years, or both…”

        Bold emphasis mine.

        Now, if this were just a lottery set up by Elon Musk for people who sign a petition, that’d be one thing, but this petition has prerequisites aside from just signing your name on the petition. First of all, it’s only for people who live in Pennsylvania. Second, you are only eligible to enter if you yourself register to vote or refer someone else in a battleground state to register to vote via a link as their sponsor.

        The statute above specifically states that both offers to pay or accepted payments in exchange for registering to vote is prohibited. So not only might Elon Musk be in trouble for offering the financial incentive, so too is anyone who accepted the reward money as a result of their participation. Musk is trying to get around this by making it a random draw, but the fact that they are only eligible when they meet the specific requirement of someone somewhere registering to vote, that should be cause for concern. It’s not a totally clear cut violation of the law, but it’s quite clearly against the spirit of the law which wants to discourage people from using financial incentives like the one Musk is offering to compel people to vote or register to vote.

          • vortic@lemmy.world
            2·
            29 days ago

            … or imprisoned not more than 5 years …

            That said, your point isn’t wrong. $10,000 is nothing in this context. Criminal fines should be in direct proportion to a person’s income. Also, statutes, when they mention monetary value, should peg that value to invlation, income, or some other metric that scales with time. We have SOOOOO many laws on the books that use ridiculous numbers by modern standards but were reasonable at the time they were enacted.

            • _bcron_@lemmy.worldEnglish
              2·
              29 days ago

              We have SOOOOO many laws on the books that use ridiculous numbers by modern standards

              I think the most egregious ones are thresholds for felony theft. A lot of states haven’t adjusted the thresholds in many decades. New Jersey for example, theft of something valued 200-500 bucks is a class 4 felony and 500-75000 is a class 3.

              So like, in that particular case, someone gets in a heated argument with their roommate who owes them money, takes their Playstation 5 as collateral, they might face the same charges as someone who breaks into a construction site and steals an entire trailer full of power tools

          • Furbag@lemmy.world
            1·
            29 days ago

            I know, I rolled my eyes at that part too.

            I hope the judge presiding would realize that fining the richest man in the world $10,000 would be like fining me one cent for a parking ticket and expecting me to have learned my lesson. Jail time should absolutely be on the table all things considered.

  • NutWrench@lemmy.ml
    7·
    28 days ago

    And if Elmo does it again, he’ll get an even stronger warning.

    It must be nice to live a consequence-free life.

    • Rapidcreek@lemmy.worldOP
      1·
      28 days ago

      Usually, if Musk’s PAC does not comply, the DOJ initiates an investigation phase. Gets a court order to preserve all documents and xoorspondence, etc.

    • auzy@lemmy.world
      1·
      28 days ago

      Investigations take time.

      Don’t be surprised if Elon is already under investigation in the background

  • dohpaz42@lemmy.worldEnglish
    41·
    29 days ago

    If I’m understanding correctly, this sounds like lip service and nothing more than a side-eye glare from the DOJ while muttering quietly, “Don’t. Stop. That’s ‘illegal’” in Musk’s general direction.

    They have as many teeth as the SEC has had when it comes to Musk’s “AlLEdgEd” shenanigans.

    🙄 🤦‍♂️