A month-a-day voter sweepstakes run by Elon Musk’s political action committee in battleground states can continue until Tuesday’s presidential election, a Pennsylvania judge ruled Monday.
Court of Common Pleas Judge Angelo Forietta issued the ruling after Mr. Musk’s lawyer said the winner was not chosen by chance, but did not immediately provide a reason for his decision.
Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner called the sweepstakes a scam that violates state election law and called for it to be stopped.
Earlier, the billionaire’s lawyers argued in court that Musk’s pro-Trump group did not randomly select a winner to give away $1 a day to registered voters, but instead He said he chose someone who would be a good advocate for his agenda.
Mr Musk’s lawyer Chris Gober will try to convince the judge that the giveaway is not an “illegal lottery”, as Mr Krasner claimed in a lawsuit seeking to block the contest ahead of Tuesday’s US presidential election. It was.
“There are no prizes to be won. Instead, winners must fulfill their contractual obligations as Pac spokespersons,” Gober said at the Forietta hearing.
The hearing in the battleground state came a day before Kamala Harris and Donald Trump face off in a tight election race. Musk and his political action committee have backed the former president, and new figures show spending has increased significantly in recent days to at least $169 million.
Musk’s proposal is limited to registered voters in seven states where the outcome of the election is expected to be decided: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. America Pac said the remaining two winners would be from Arizona and Michigan, meaning Musk likely could have continued the giveaway even if Folietta blocked the drawing. It means.
“Pennsylvania law only protects people in Pennsylvania,” said Richard Briffault, a professor at Columbia Law School.
Since October 19, Tesla’s CEO has handed out $1 million checks every day to voters who signed petitions supporting free speech and gun rights. Musk has become an outspoken Trump supporter this year, promoting the president on his social media platform Twitter/X.
Krasner, a Democrat, sued Musk and his political action committee in state court on October 28, seeking to block the giveaway, calling it an illegal lottery that violates state consumer protection laws.
John Summers, a lawyer in Mr. Krasner’s office, said Mr. Gover’s comments were a “full admission of responsibility.”
“I just heard this guy say, my boss, my client called me randomly,” Summers said. “We promised people that they would participate in a random process, but it’s a process where we pre-select people.”
Summers later presented in court a clip of Musk telling attendees at a Trump rally on Oct. 19 that America Pac would “randomly” give away $1 million to people who sign a petition every day until the election. I showed it. “All we ask is that the winner be the spokesperson for the group,” Musk also said in the video.
Mr. Krasner took the witness stand. Under questioning from Summers, he said the two Pennsylvania residents had been “fooled” and called the giveaway “corruption” aimed at political marketing.
Musk repeatedly uses the word “randomly” to describe the giveaway, and the spokesperson said that the paperwork Pennsylvania voters filled out to enter the giveaway He said there was no mention of that.
“I don’t think it’s a public relations contract,” Krasner said.
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Philadelphia is the largest city in Pennsylvania. Whichever candidate wins, the state will receive 19 of the 270 total electoral votes needed to win.
The perk falls into a gray area in election law, and legal experts say whether Musk may be violating federal law by paying people to register to vote. are divided.
The U.S. Department of Justice warned America Pac that the giveaway may violate federal law, but federal prosecutors took no official action.
Meanwhile, new federal disclosures show that Mr. Musk and America Pac have spent $169 million so far supporting Mr. Trump, an increase of almost $40 million in one week. The Federal Election Commission’s website shows new spending on digital media slots opposing Trump or Harris, with more than half ($97 million) going to Musk’s embattled campaign. It is shown that it has been spent.
The Trump campaign relies extensively on outside groups to recruit voters, meaning the superpac founded by Musk, the world’s richest man, will play an outsized role in what is expected to be an extremely close election. It means that it is fulfilled.
“Billionaire campaign spending on this scale drowns out the voices and concerns of ordinary Americans,” David Kass, executive director of America for Tax Fairness, said in a statement.
“This is one of the most obvious and alarming consequences of billionaires’ growing wealth, and a major indicator that the system regulating campaign finance is broken.”
Report contributed by Reuters
Read more of the Guardian’s 2024 US election coverage:
