Hacker News Reader

Comment by nemo44x | Hacker News Reader

He’s not doing anything activists haven’t done for years to get out the vote. In college famous rock and hip hop groups would come on campus to play shows that had voter registration tables upon entry and lots of messaging about who to vote for and then being endlessly recruited to volunteer/phone bank/canvas for some group that was supporting the event.

Activism cuts both ways.

View on HN

Direct payments do seem to be illegal in a way that having a rally or concert or canvassing are not.

https://electionlawblog.org/?p=146397

You’re not obligated to do anything like vote or vote a certain way. Money is speech and it’s an advertisement.

That’s just some random blog. I’m sure Musks’s lawyers understand what they’re doing.

Frankly I find it inspiring he cares enough about our democracy to encourage people to participate in it at great expense of his own. You love to see innovation in turning out voters who may not otherwise have their voices heard.

It's not a random blog making some conjectures, Rick Hasen is a law professor who is an expert in this area and, moreover, he cites specifics statutes and DOJ information that's not all that ambiguous.

He gets basic facts wrong in his blog though. For instance the rewards are for referring people to sign a petition that says you support 1a and 2a. You need to be registered for your voice to count. He’s not paying them to register but rather to refer registered people to sign it. So it’s up to an individual to find registered voters to sign it so they can collect their $47 bounty per referred signee.

> He gets basic facts wrong in his blog though.

No, he doesn't. He references the $47 as 'murky legality'. What he's stating is clearly illegal is the $1M lottery also announced by Musk.

And Musk does what he wants regardless of lawyers. Remember when he tried to back out of buying Twitter...

Yes but he didn't take into consideration that laws don't apply when you are a billionaire and that you hold both state secrets (via DoD/Starlink) and connections to foreign countries.

So Musk will be fine, especially if Trump wins.

In case anyone looks at this older thread - supposedly the DOJ sent a warning to the PAC offering $1M lottery tickets.

https://www.24sight.news/p/scoop-doj-sends-musk-pac-warning

That’s just some random blog. I’m sure Musks’s lawyers understand what they’re doing.

I'm sure his lawyers know what they're doing, but did that stop their client from calling a cave diver a pedophile for objecting to his submarine design?

Musk is basically a valueless chaos monkey with a perfect 18 score in Luck. Even he doesn't know what he'll do, say, or believe next. He has the luxury of not caring because it doesn't matter anyway; he'll just continue to get away with things that would shut the rest of us down for good. Not surprising that he's found a kindred spirit in Trump.

That may be but were they required to sign a PAC's pledge to enter such concert? I think this might be over the line but a court has the decide this.

Paying someone to vote a certain way is in fact illegal though.

You can vote for whomever you’d like. His PAC isn’t asking you to prove you voted or voted for a particular person to get the money. They’re just generating buzz and interest in the candidate they feel is better.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com