Elon Musk’s million-dollar giveaways to voters have turned out to be a scam, according to the Philadelphia prosecutor. It’s not that there weren’t a million dollars, it’s that there was no raffle. This was recognized this Monday in a hearing by the lawyers of Elon Musk and his organization America PAC, with which he has supported Donald Trump’s campaign in the presidential elections. The prizes are ending and America PAC has already selected the last two winners, but not by lottery, as it now says. The richest man in the world has deceived voters.
Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner asked the judge Monday to ban the awards. “This was all political marketing disguised as a lottery. That’s what it is. A scam,” he said from the stand, according to the Associated Press.
Chris Gober, a lawyer for America PAC, Elon Musk’s political action committee, argued before the judge that the supposed winners of his million-dollar-a-day drawings among voters in swing states are not chosen at random, but who are appointed to be paid “spokespersons” for the group. This is not how Elon Musk and his organization presented the awards, but there were clear signs that, if they were raffles, they were rigged.
“We want to try to get over a million, maybe two million swing state voters to sign the petition in support of the First and Second Amendment. We are going to award a million dollars at random to the people who have signed the petition, every day, from now until the election,” Musk said at a campaign event in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, when presenting the first check.
Something smelled bad about those supposed giveaways. Although Musk implied that all those who had signed the petition in Pennsylvania, first, and in the group of decisive states, later, participated in that hypothetical raffle, it was very much a coincidence that the winners always turned out to be those who were present at the Elon Musk rallies. The magnate turned the delivery of the checks into a spectacle. It was also suspicious that the prizes then fell in each and every one of the decisive states.
It is possible that initially the money was awarded randomly among those attending the rally (of course, the winners seemed genuinely surprised) and when legal action was initiated against these illegal raffles, Elon Musk and his organization disguised them as remuneration to the winners for being spokesmen. Pennsylvania law requires that all lotteries be operated and administered by the State.
America PAC’s attorney told the judge that Monday and Tuesday’s recipients have already been selected and will come from Arizona and Michigan, respectively, and therefore will not affect the Pennsylvania election. He added that recipients are chosen based on their personal stories and sign a contract with the political organization, America PAC. “Million dollar recipients are not chosen by chance. “We know exactly who will be announced as the recipient of the million dollars today and tomorrow,” Gober said, according to AP. However, that is not what the organization has been conveying to registered voters.
The current lawsuit is of a civil nature, for deceiving citizens with an illegal lottery. In addition to that, the Department of Justice warned the organization that the raffles could violate electoral regulations. Federal law prohibits paying voters to vote or register to vote. It is considered a crime with penalties of up to $10,000 and up to five years in prison. A Department of Justice manual notes that this includes “anything that has monetary value, including cash, liquor,lottery possibilities and social benefits such as food stamps.”
In theory, the award was intended for signers of a declaration defending freedom of expression and the right to own firearms, enshrined in the first two amendments to the United States Constitution. However, to sign it you must be a registered voter, which casts doubt on the legality of these raffles from an electoral point of view.
