Justice Department warns Elon Musk that his $1 million giveaway to registered voters may be illegal
Justice Department warns Elon Musk that his $1 million giveaway to registered voters may be illegal
DOJ alerted Elon Musk America PAC lawyer of possible penalties for $1 million voter lottery
THEN FUCKING ARREST HIM.
Jesus. The rule of law is dead.
104Maybe people will wake up to understand our system of "law and order" never was meant to serve people, only capital.
30Excellent point, comrade.
1
Can we revoke his government contracts now?
102Why don’t we seize his companies and most of his money?
Give him a billion dollars and a yacht and exile him.
15
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
80I wish what they'd say is, "we will prosecute this and a jury will decide."
31Can 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.
-3Okay, 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.
5
No lawyer, but so often you'll see a judge discuss the intent of the law vs. the letter of the law and make judgement on that, sometimes helping to change the law in question. Here we have a case where the argument is that he isn't paying someone to vote a certain way or even to vote, so it's not technically breaking existing law. But we all see what's going on, so the intent is clear.
Nothing will happen to him mainly because of him being untouchable, plus the time frame. This just needs to serve as a lesson to act on for the future and get the laws caught up with the times, where absolutely the rich and powerful are influencing political direction in so many ways, and have been for a long time. It needs to stop.
26It’s illegal to offer someone something of value, which explicitly includes lottery entries, in exchange for their being registered to vote.
No idea why there’s a “may be” about any of this.
20
Elon's banking on it not mattering in 3 months.
23May be? Are they not sure? Aren't they the guys who should know for sure?
23People joke about strongly worded letters...
15And if Elmo does it again, he'll get an even stronger warning.
It must be nice to live a consequence-free life.
13Investigations take time.
Don't be surprised if Elon is already under investigation in the background
3
Another source:
https://politicalwire.com/2024/10/23/elon-musk-got-warning-letter-for-lottery-scheme/(not that it adds any further info)
11Edited source and title to CNN
6
May? How is it not a bribe?
10Citizens United and SpeechNow opened the door to this.
10Because it's a lottery you enter when signing a petition. That's it.
-4That’s still a bribe. You get no chance at all of you don’t sign.
1
If I did this they'd be beating me with a rubber hose on my front lawn. Why's he get a "warning"?
(I know why)
10'may' be?. try is
9He knows. Fucking do something about it
8If 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.
🙄 🤦♂️
6So, here's my test: someone without his clout do the exact same thing except with $100. If that person gets charged but Musk doesn't, that tells you exactly why Musk will get away with it.
4
As it should!
5#IS illegal*, you yellow-bellied felch suckers.
4I, for one, am still waiting on the Bill Gates money from all those times I forwarded that email
2The news source of this post could not be identified. Please check the source yourself. Media Bias Fact Check | bot support
-3