Elon Musk lawyer says $1 million voter giveaway winners are not random
Elon Musk lawyer says $1 million voter giveaway winners are not random
Summary
Elon Musk’s pro-Trump group, America PAC, selects $1 million giveaway winners based on their potential as spokespeople rather than randomly.
The Philadelphia district attorney Lawrence Krasner alleges this violates state consumer protection laws. "This was all political marketing masquerading as a lottery, albeit an illegal lottery," Krasner said.
The U.S. Department of Justice has warned America PAC the giveaway could violate federal law, according to media reports, but federal prosecutors have not taken any public action.
The outcome of the lawsuit could impact the group’s ability to continue the contest, which has already awarded $16 million to registered voters in battleground states.
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Lolz. Sounds like somebody found a way to not get arrested.
Except that they stated multiple times, publicly, that the winners are picked randomly. So if they are not running a lottery then they have defrauded the participants.
They only did a few, and then found a way out. If you "reveal" some other reasoning behind the curtain, that is what is considered admissible, legally in the US.
Example:
DA: "You are accused of running a lottery to get people to vote for a specific candidate, which is illegal. Is that what happened?"
Musk: "Nope, we lied about it being random, and the winners were specifically chosen, which is not a violation of the law"
Except it is a violation of the law, just a different law. They defrauded the public by collecting something of material value (registrant information) under false pretenses. It's textbook fraud
I'm not his lawyer, but it certainly sounds like he didn't consult with them before doing the thing, and this obviously shifty change in stance is because it's his lawyers who found a way out of trouble for their client. I'm sure they have you beat on this.
Lawyers making up insane defenses doesn't mean they have the law on their side. They hail mary all the time.
You assume their goal is to get him off entirely and not to simply shift the crime to a lesser offense
It's a legal team whose job it is to lessen the damage.
A "donation" or "gift" to a specific person isn't a crime.
Running a fucking giveaway or lottery is though.
The gift isn't the crime.
Telling people you're holding a sweepstakes, collecting their information based on that statement, and then not holding the sweepstakes and instead giving the supposed prize to someone of your choice is the crime
It's called fraud
The outcome is not though. https://www.olshanlaw.com/sweepstakes-law-basics#:~:text=The official rules must typically,of entries by a single
Many lawsuits from many different states because of the Monopoly fiasco multiple times over proves this. As long as you don't game the outcome while still claiming it is such, it's neither a giveaway, nor a sweepstakes. That's the loophole. All Musk has to do is proclaim he is a liar, which he will totally do when Trump loses. Hell, he could just call it staged and probably win in court.
Edit for proof: https://apnews.com/article/musk-million-sweepstakes-lottery-pennsylvania-krasner-4f683c48eb7dcc57f183e54ef16e7320