Hey look, a foreigner actively engaging in voter fraud!
Next he’ll be eating dogs… right?
His emerald mine slaves may have to eat dog to survive.
More likely they get fed to the dogs if they misbehave.
They already have that position covered.
It’s too fucking bad that the FEC is essentially powerless due to partisan politics.
Republican partisan politics.
Oh, 100% - I should have been clearer that this erosion of enforcement is entirely driven by the GOP and quite intentional.
Things like this are their goal when they use buzz words like relaxed regulation, “small government”, and “free market”.
The phrase “partisan politics” is pretty solidly in the realm of “both sides” rhetoric.
America badly needs electoral reform and viable third parties. This FPTP, pay-to-win system creates is such a dumpster fire.
This is in contrast to the regular legal type of vote buying of course.
You mean like the practice of handing out water, watm beverages, and sometimes snacks to people stuck in long waiting likes to vote in mostly southern and majority, minority districts. If only giving a $1 bottle of water away for free was nearly as bad as giving away $1,000,000 to potential voters.
Now, if you told your employees that half of them would be let go if I didn’t make it into office…
Musk claims it is “a random $1 million payment each day to one registered voter” but is it really random or he is cherry picking ‘specific’ supporters?
I doubt anyone is getting money
“Another Melon Eusk won the daily lottery? Sure seems to be a common name!”
Well maybe someone gets $100 staging they got 1m.
And all registered voters or just from specific areas.
Garland: “I will treat this with as much importance as I do with everything surrounding Trump doing bad things…”
Money is free speech
And Speech is free money. Source: Skyrim
In principle, the same is true for the real world.
It it one of my favorite silly thought experiments: what could someone do if they were persuasive enough? The answer is, in principle, pretty much anything.
Imagine someone with the Devil’s charisma; they can literally persuade anyone into anything. Such a person, coming from nowhere, could be running the entire country in an afternoon.
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Walk to the White House gate. Persuade the guard to let you in to meet a staffer.
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Meet the staffer. Persuade them to let you meet with the president and vice president.
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Persuade the Vice President to resign, and persuade the President to nominate you as the new VP and set up a meeting with key house and senate leaders.
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Persuade the House and Senate to confirm your nomination.
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Persuade the President to resign.
In the real world, if they had a high enough “charisma score,” anyone could literally become president in a single afternoon. They could be an absolute nobody with zero background in leadership or high office. But if someone had some demonic ability to just talk people into anything, they could be running the country in an afternoon.
Good thing real life doesn’t follow videogame logic
Rasputin tho
It help to have the mystical ability to make a hemophiliac child feel better. And a giant schlong.
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Freezy peaches you say?
“Clearly illegal” has become the new “our best iPhone yet.”
You can expect to hear it very regularly and also expect that it will make zero difference.
This crime is the thinnest yet!
Accused of, huh?
Seems like it should have been " charged with"
Is this like that email that if you forwarded it, Bill Gates was gonna make you a bazillionaire, because he invented the Internet or something?
Cool, so it’s fine if Mark Cuban does the same thing for the Democrats, right?
Right???
No. Is he though?
Of course he’s not, it’s a hypothetical question. It would be election interference if the Democrats did it.
The Republicans, however can ostensibly do whatever the crap they want without repercussions as the FEC looks on with their head all the way up their own sphincter.
The FEC knows if they tried something SCOTUS would shut it down in a second.
IdiotsRight-wingers will assert that George Soros is, no evidence wanted or needed.Total coincidence they picked someone Jewish for their conspiracies about bankers secretly controlling the world.
I see articles like this stating he has donated $0 and doesn’t intend to contribute anything. He also calls out Musk for what he is doing.
According to OpenSecrets.org, which tracks campaign financing, Cuban last donated to a candidate in 2002, when he gave $1,000 to Democratic California Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren’s campaign.
Of course, since most of the internet can’t detect sarcasm, you’re getting down voted.
Haha, oh well. As long as a few people see the obvious hypocrisy I’m trying to point out in our system. What does the FEC even do if not this kind of stuff???
Lemmy especially cant detect sarcasm, but then again im convinced that about 40 percent of Lemmy is autistic or clone enough.
I’m real!
And so am I!
If “most of the internet” misunderstands you, then you need to work on your communication skills.
This is literally happening for Democrats via the CAH ploy, and according to the posts I saw on Lemmy, it was the most “amazing cool as fuck bonkers ass wild in your face suck it Republicans scheme ever thought up by anyone ever on the face of the planet mind explode!”
So…what’s the problem?
CAH also explicitly said that what they were doing should be illegal.
I think that penetrating fruit in a sexual manner should be illegal.
I still do it because it’s not.
Yea that’s the point buddy.
Yes it is?
I don’t understand what the point here is.
I am saying this post/headline/people agreeing with it are hypocritical.
What is the point you guys are trying to make?
You realize they’re doing it to point out the hypocrisy, right? They think it shouldn’t be legal for either side to do. But while it is, they want to call attention to it.
They basically did the same thing the Satanic Temple often does. Use the rules republicans make thinking only they will benefit. When they are used by the other side as well it has a funny way of causing a reevaluation of if it should in fact be legal after all. My understanding is that CAH made a sort of parody of Musks trick although doing it in a slightly more careful way to make sure that any legal action against them would apply more broadly. I don’t think it’s good that vote buying is a thing, but equating the satirical protest campaign with the actual thing being pushed against is unfair in my opinion. You can argue if they go about it the right way or not but legitimizing the original offense by pointing out people cheered at the counter campaign opposing musk using the same tool and humor feels disingenuous.
I’ll be more shocked if anything comes of it
Seems like a good way to raise money for a charity you like. Say, planned parenthood. Get everyone you know to sign the petition. Vote for whomever you want and but that trash bag weasels money to good use.
I don’t understand what’s being implied here.
The petition states, “By signing below, I am pledging my support for the First and Second Amendments.”
It says nothing about buying votes, pledging to vote for a candidate, or providing any proof that you voted at all. The only requirement is that you are registered voter in one of a handful of states.
As a registered democrat in PA, what’s preventing me from signing the petition and getting some free cash? If I believe that voting for Harris is a vote to support the first and second amendments, which I fully do, what’s the problem?
His purpose for providing the money is not just for you to sign a partition. It is to buy your favor and join him in voting for Trump. You are foolish if you think otherwise.
to buy your favor and join him in voting for Trump.
Where do you see this?
His entire push is for people to vote for Trump the money and the petition is for you to enter his camp. Stop playing dumb.
Can’t you just take the money and then vote for whoever you want?
Yes you can. The focus is on getting people to register to vote that are like minded to Elon but you can play him and take the money.
Not dumb. It’s a legitimate question if we’re talking legality.
Musk did go to a Trump rally and say specifically voting for Trump is to preserve your first amendment rights and then offered to pay for people to vote to protect their first amendment rights. That seems legally questionable to me.
You’re ignoring my question.
The article, which is quoting someone on twitter, states that what he’s doing is illegal because he’s offering to buy votes. This is in contrast to what the petition actually states. There is no requirement for you to vote for anyone at all in order to get paid and enter a lottery. That is, unless you can direct me to something that explicitly, in writing, supports your claim.
Oh my goodness let me break it down for you. It is not just illegal to to pay people to vote it is illegal to pay people to register to vote. He is using a lottery system which pays people money to sign his petition the requirement to sign the petition is you have to be registered to vote. The Petition could say I like eggs. The petition is meaningless. The purpose is to get people to register to vote that are like minded to Elon using the possible payment of large sums of money. “Musk’s sweepstakes-style award is only available for registered swing-state voters who sign his right-wing PAC’s pledge.” - https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/20/24274971/elon-musk-1-million-prize-america-pac-petition-voting-presidential-election
OK… the exceptionally odd part of your response is that we’re commenting on a specific article speaking about this and you’ve linked to an entirely different web site. Do you work for the verge?
I would like to see some court cases related a requirement to be a registered voter to enter a sweepstakes.
Still, again, my point is regarding what is implied in this article which is that Musk is paying people to vote for Trump. You do agree that this is not the case, correct?
Edit: I think I get it. No one wants to hold the media accountable when they say something that enforces our existing opinions of people - even when it’s verifiably untrue.
So, while it’s readily apparent that Musk is not guilty of “Clearly Illegal Vote-Buying”, he has established something in which any registered voter in a handful of states can “pledge their support for the First and Second Amendments” and receive financial compensation. There is in fact no requirement to vote for either Trump or Harris nor to cast a vote in this coming election.
It would seem plausible, based on the US Code quoted in the article, that it’s not legal to require someone to be a registered voter to sign a petition and receive compensation. Frankly, I think people are grossly overlooking the fact that someone is paying someone to sign a petition to begin with. I would certainly hope that this is something law enforcement takes a look at.
However, the claim that Musk is paying people to vote for Trump is not at all factual. This would make this “Common Dreams” article misinformation - would it not?
Still, again, my point is regarding what is implied in this article which is that Musk is paying people to vote for Trump. You do agree that this is not the case, correct?
No. Musk goes to a rally and says vote for Trump to preserve your first amendment rights then offers money to people pledging to support first amendment rights. Stop playing dumb
Does the receipt of cash-money dollars not release dopamine in your brain or are you simply being willfully obtuse with this contribution?
I read elsewhere that the issue was that you had to sign the petition to be eligible to win, and that you had to be a registered voter to sign the petition. So technically it was paying to get you to register. Which is not allowed.
I’m guessing it will also play into Trump’s voter fraud claims later. Use Musk’s petition as “proof” that votes for him weren’t counted/were converted to Harris/some other nonsense claim because it’s heavily implied if you’ve signed the petition that you would be voting for trump.
They don’t need real events to site as proof. They prefer to make them up. It buys time while opponents have to try to figure out the source of the claim. I mean if you are going to lie, this is a great plan.
So, not “vote-buying”.
Derek Muller, an election law expert at Notre Dame Law School, said Sunday that “when you start limiting prizes or giveaways to only registered voters or only people who have voted, that’s where bribery concerns arise.” “By limiting a giveaway only to registered voters,” Muller added, “it looks like you’re giving cash for voter registration.”
Does lemmy.ml prevent you from reading articles or are you being purposely obtuse?
So, not illegal vote buying. Correct?
Purposely obtuse, got it. Go strawman somewhere else
Title of article:
Trump Backer Elon Musk Accused of ‘Clearly Illegal Vote-Buying’.
I’m not sure what reality you all are a pat of. I’m just sitting here reading and commenting on what was shared. It is a fact that Musk is not buying votes. Had the article made the claim that “Musk pays registered voters to sign a petition”, that would be legit.
The article didn’t make a claim. It’s reporting on claims made by other people. There’s more to an article than the title but even the title isn’t explicitly stating what he did is illegal. It’s literally reporting on people accusing him of it yet you latched on to the accusation like they’re reporting it as fact, also known as strawman.
Do you know if the “random $1 million payment each day to one registered voter” is actually random? Is Musk cherry picking a ‘specific’ supporter?
And I’m ot running a brothel in my hourly motel outside of town. People rent the room for 2 hours, and it’s none of my business what happens between them and the housekeeper
I suppose you would have to look up the law against it and see what it calls the action. They could call it Mississippi steamboating if they wanted to. So the possibility it is called vote buying isn’t unreasonable. But if you are just arguing that the headline is misleading… water is wet too.
Do it! The problem, which you will be helping to solve, is wealth concentration. Move that dough out of muskie’s bank account = good.
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