{"id":621,"date":"2024-11-11T11:12:34","date_gmt":"2024-11-11T11:12:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/philadelphia-d-a-takes-action-on-election-lottery-from-elon-musks-super-pac\/"},"modified":"2024-11-11T11:12:34","modified_gmt":"2024-11-11T11:12:34","slug":"philadelphia-d-a-takes-action-on-election-lottery-from-elon-musks-super-pac","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/philadelphia-d-a-takes-action-on-election-lottery-from-elon-musks-super-pac\/","title":{"rendered":"Philadelphia D.A. takes action on election \u2018lottery\u2019 from Elon Musk’s super PAC"},"content":{"rendered":"
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There was a point in the not-too-distant past in which Elon Musk said he intended to keep his wallet closed in the 2024 election cycle<\/a>. The conspiratorial billionaire ultimately changed his mind and began investing heavily in support of Republican candidates up and down the ballot.<\/p>\n

In fact, the world\u2019s wealthiest man even helped create a super PAC that, among other things, created a $1 million \u201clottery\u201d<\/a> of sorts: If you registered to vote in a battleground state, and you\u2019re willing to sign an America PAC petition, you too might pick up a seven-figure check.<\/p>\n

If that doesn\u2019t sound altogether legal to you, you\u2019re not alone. As my BLN colleague Lisa Rubin explained<\/a>, because federal law already prohibits paying any person for their vote or even to register to vote, \u201ca group of former GOP Justice Department officials even asked Attorney General Merrick Garland to open an investigation.\u201d<\/p>\n

We don\u2019t know for sure whether or not that has happened, or will ever happen, though the Justice Department\u2019s Public Integrity Section reportedly contacted America PAC<\/a>, warning that these giveaways\u00a0might be in conflict with federal election law.<\/p>\n

The district attorney\u2019s office in Philadelphia has apparently gone one step further. NBC News reported<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner is suing Elon Musk and his super PAC to block their million-dollar giveaway to registered voters, seeking to halt the lottery-style stunt that election experts, and the Department of Justice, have warned might violate federal law. Krasner is seeking an injunction: he argued in a filing that the effort is an illegal, unregulated lottery, sidestepping the question of whether it violates vote-buying laws.<\/p>\n

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\u201cAmerica PAC and Musk are lulling Philadelphia citizens \u2014 and others in the Commonwealth (and other swing states in the upcoming election) \u2014 to give up their personal identifying information and make a political pledge in exchange for the chance to win $1 million. That is a lottery,\u201d the suit alleges. \u201cAnd it is indisputably an unlawful lottery. Under unambiguous Pennsylvania law, all lotteries in Pennsylvania must be regulated by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.\u201d<\/p>\n

An attorney representing America PAC did not respond immediately to NBC News\u2019 request for comment on the suit.<\/p>\n

Time will tell when and\/or whether a judge will set a hearing in this matter, though the local prosecutor is clearly counting on swift action. Watch this space.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Steve Benen<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of\u00a0MaddowBlog\u00a0and an BLN political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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There was a point in the not-too-distant past in which Elon Musk said he intended to keep his wallet closed in the 2024 election cycle. The conspiratorial billionaire ultimately changed his mind and began investing heavily in support of Republican candidates up and down the ballot. In fact, the world\u2019s wealthiest man even helped create […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":622,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","category-trump"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=621"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}