Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk’s pledge to give away $1 million a day to randomly selected voters in swing states who sign a political action committee petition could be illegal, according to some experts.
The America PAC petition affirms support for free speech and the right to bear arms.
“We want to try to get over a million, maybe 2 million voters in the battleground states to sign the petition in support of the First and Second Amendment. … We are going to be awarding $1 million randomly to people who have signed the petition, every day, from now until the election,” Musk announced at a Trump campaign event in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on Saturday.
However, some legal experts say that Musk’s lottery plan could be illegal because it requires participants to register to vote.
“There 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,” campaign finance lawyer Brendan Fischer told Associate Press via email.
“If all he was doing was paying people to sign the petition, that might be a waste of money. But there’s nothing illegal about it,” said Rick Hasen, a political science professor at UCLA Law School, per AP. “The 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.”
“Whoever knowingly or willfully … pays or offers to pay, or accepts payment, either for registration to vote, or for voting” can face up to five years in prison, according to federal voting law 52 U.S.C. 10307(c). Per the DOJ Election Crimes Manual, “lottery chances” intended to “induce or reward reward a voter for engaging in one or more acts necessary to cast a ballot” are prohibited.
Michael Kang, election law professor at Northwestern University’s Pritzker School of Law, said that the announcement of the lottery progam so close to the general election makes it appear as an effort to incentivize people to register to vote.
“It’s not quite the same as paying someone to vote, but you’re getting close enough that we worry about its legality,” Kang said, according to AP.
Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, who is a Democrat, said Musk’s offer was “deeply concerning.” In an interview on Meet the Press, Shapiro stopped short of saying that the lottery give-away was illegal, but he added, ” I think it’s something that law enforcement should take a look at.”
The first three winners of the lottery will be selected among Pennsylvania voters, and then chances to win the prize will open up to registered voters in Georgia, Nevada, Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin, and North Carolina. The first two winners, John Dreher and Kristine Fishell, have already received checks for $1 million.