{"id":7792,"date":"2025-03-30T10:21:27","date_gmt":"2025-03-30T10:21:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wisconsin-ag-sues-musk-over-his-state-supreme-court-voter-payout-scheme\/"},"modified":"2025-03-30T10:21:27","modified_gmt":"2025-03-30T10:21:27","slug":"wisconsin-ag-sues-musk-over-his-state-supreme-court-voter-payout-scheme","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wisconsin-ag-sues-musk-over-his-state-supreme-court-voter-payout-scheme\/","title":{"rendered":"Wisconsin AG sues Musk over his state Supreme Court voter payout scheme"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Wisconsin’s attorney general has sued Elon Musk<\/a> to prevent him from giving $1 million checks to voters who signed his petition opposing “activist judges” in the state Supreme Court election.<\/p>\n

Attorney General Josh Kaul, a Democrat, filed the lawsuit against Musk on Friday over his voter payout scheme. “Based on our understanding of applicable Wisconsin law, we intend to take legal action today to seek a court order to stop this from happening,” Kaul said in a statement<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Musk had promised to hand out $1 million apiece to two voters at an event on Sunday. <\/strong>The Tesla CEO initially linked his giveaway to people who had already voted in the election “in appreciation for you taking the time to vote,” a move that potentially flouts a federal law that bars payments to people in exchange for their votes or for registering to vote. Legal scholar Rick Hasen has also said that the scheme may be illegal<\/a> under Wisconsin law.<\/p>\n

Musk later deleted the post and issued a “clarification” that removed any connection between the payouts and voting, saying the money will be awarded to “spokesmen” for his petition<\/a> to oppose “activist judges” and that entrance to the event is limited to those who have signed that petition. The pivot echoes the disclosure in a Pennsylvania court in November that Musk’s daily million-dollar campaign season payouts<\/a> were to “spokespeople,” rather than randomly chosen individuals who had signed a petition.<\/p>\n

NBC News reported<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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After the news broke Kaul would seek to block Musk’s giveaway, Musk reposted a message on his social media platform X in which another user called the lawsuit ‘lawfare,’ a refrain Trump and his allies have used to decry legal decisions that have gone against the president and the various investigations he’s faced in the last few years.<\/p>\n

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The race between liberal candidate Susan Crawford and conservative Brad Schimel for an empty seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court has attracted national attention — and donations. It is already <\/strong>the most expensive judicial election<\/a> in U.S. history, with more than $81 million poured into a race that will determine the partisan lean of the swing state’s highest court, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.<\/p>\n

Groups linked to Musk have spent millions to help boost Schimel’s campaign<\/a> and have <\/strong>offered financial incentives to voters<\/a> to engage them in the race. It is yet another test of the billionaire’s effort to turn his financial might into political power.<\/p>\n

Musk became involved in the election shortly after Tesla sued Wisconsin over a state law <\/a>that prohibits auto manufacturers from selling directly to consumers. That lawsuit may very well end up before the court — whose political makeup he is currently <\/strong>trying to sway.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Clarissa-je Lim<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Clarissa-Jan Lim is a breaking\/trending news blogger for BLN Digital. She was previously a senior reporter and editor at BuzzFeed News.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wisconsin’s attorney general has sued Elon Musk to prevent him from giving $1 million checks to voters who signed his petition opposing “activist judges” in the state Supreme Court election. Attorney General Josh Kaul, a Democrat, filed the lawsuit against Musk on Friday over his voter payout scheme. “Based on our understanding of applicable Wisconsin […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7793,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trump"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7792","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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7792"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7792\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}