Musk offers voters $1 million a day to sign PAC petition backing the Constitution. Is that legal?
- by The Associated Press on MSN.com
- Oct 21, 2024
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Elon Musk speaks at a town hall with Republican candidate US Senate Dave McCormick at the Roxain Theater on October 20, 2024 in Pittsburgh.
Michael Swensen/Getty
Elon Musk, the billionaire founder of Tesla and Space X and owner of X whoâs gone all-in on Republican Donald Trumpâs candidacy for the White House, has already committed at least $70 million to help the former president. Now heâs pledging to give away $1 million a day to voters for signing his political action committeeâs petition backing the Constitution.
The giveaway is raising questions and alarms among some election experts who say it is a violation of the law to link a cash handout to signing a petition that also requires a person to be registered to vote.
Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, the stateâs former attorney general, expressed concern about the plan on Sunday.
âI think there are real questions with how he is spending money in this race, how the dark money is flowing, not just into Pennsylvania, but apparently now into the pockets of Pennsylvanians. That is deeply concerning,â he said on NBCâs âMeet the Press.â
Get Starting Point Whatâs the issue with that?
Some election law experts are raising red flags about the giveaway. Brendan Fischer, a campaign finance lawyer, said the latest iteration of Muskâs giveaway approaches a legal boundary. Thatâs because the PAC is requiring registration as a prerequisite to become eligible for the $1 million check. âThere would be few doubts about the legality if every Pennsylvania-based petition signer were eligible, but conditioning the payments on registration arguably violates the law,â Fischer said in an email.
Rick Hasen, a UCLA Law School political science professor, went further. He pointed to a law that prohibits paying people for registering to vote or for voting. âIf all he was doing was paying people to sign the petition, that might be a waste of money. But thereâs nothing illegal about it,â Hasen said in a telephone interview. âThe problem is that the only people eligible to participate in this giveaway are the people who are registered to vote. And that makes it illegal.â
Michael Kang, an election law professor at Northwestern Universityâs Pritzker School of Law, said the context of the giveaway so close to Election Day makes it harder to make the case that the effort is anything but a incentivizing people to register to vote.
âItâs not quite the same as paying someone to vote, but youâre getting close enough that we worry about its legality,â Kang said.
A message seeking comment was left with the PAC on Sunday, as was a request for comment from the Justice Department.
Can the PAC and Trumpâs campaign coordinate?
Typically coordination between campaigns and so-called super PACs had been forbidden. But a recent opinion by the Federal Election Commissioner, which regulates federal campaigns, permitted candidates and these groups to work together in certain cases, including getting out the vote efforts.
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