So if you’re paying someone to sign a petition — or entering them into a daily lottery for $1M — and making being a registered voter a condition of signing, then you are paying people to register to vote if they are not registered already. Which is illegal.
They’ll call it lawfare. But election law exists to prevent precisely this kind of bullshit. https://electionlawblog.org/?p=146397
@freedom_baird We are all just tears in the rain.
there’s a lot of science fiction in which protagonists are living out exciting stories against the backdrop of masses enduring dystopian or at best banal lives. welcome to the science fiction future! who did you, my statistically sophisticated reader, imagine you would end up?
@scott emojis too!
distinguish yourself in character rather than in status.
it’s not AI. it’s Jungian engineering.
we’d be better off if journalists never used the word “experts” and provided more explicit descriptions of the sources on whom they rely.
@louis My friend, they have your contact already. I’m sorry you don’t live in PA to at least render the vote buying scheme $100 more expensive. (In this case, I would also gladly scam the wealthy payer, despite my claim to nonsociopathy, because in my view the reciprocity Elon Musk requires is punishment for norm violations. But I don’t think the typical 2A loving Pennsylvanian is as blackpilled on Elon as you or I.)
@louis simultaneously, no. conditional, absolutely. if you GOTV, you might hope to be registering like minded voters, but you have to help all comers.
@louis sure. the modal effect of most interventions is nothing. for every 10 people you pay, 4 would’ve voted Trump anyway, 2 will vote Harris anyway, 2 wouldn’t have voted and still won’t, 2 wouldn’t have voted and now vote for Trump. Pennsylvania votes are worth the $500 per.
a voter registration drive conditioned on prospective voters views, like, say signing a pro 2A petition, would i think be illegal. you can do your GOTV at a gun fair, but you can’t ask then filter.
@louis i think that prohibition is dumb, but don’t think it’s a big deal.
the big deal in places like Georgia is engineering very long lines in blue precincts that renders water a helpful amenity, but the lack of free water is not going to keep a lot of people who are willing to brave those lines from persevering.
@louis no one’s gonna give back the money. it’s not a contract. but if someone gives me $100 — even a very wealthy person — because they want me to do something i think is fine to do, i’m going to try to do it, because i’m not a sociopath. sure, there will also be Elon haters who’ll sign a petition as meaningful as any petition attached to a campaign donation e-mail just to take the money, vote for Harris as they would have anyway. but statistically, you’re buying votes.
@louis @mattlehrer red states already do shutdown GOTV efforts — see Florida — and legit GOTV efforts look nothing like paying registered voters for anything, or paying people to become registered voters. i’m fine prohibiting ice cream conditional on “I voted.” stickers. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/government/politics-elections/2024/07/08/florida-voter-registration-law-has-major-impact
@louis come on. $100 per voter is crazy money for contact info, and surveillance brokers have gotten pretty good.
do you seriously not share the inference that engendering a sense of reciprocity will provoke some marginal voters to vote who might otherwise have stayed in their butts? are you going to tell me it’s plausible that expensive, high quality contact info is the sole intended motivation and any other effect would be a well-golly unanticipated consequence?
@louis if you give me $100 and i know what you want me to do, and i’m open to what you want me to do, i don’t think it’s horrible, then i’ll do it. you will too. we don’t need an enforceable contract. not because we are corrupt, but on the contrary, because we are honest people who believe in and aspire to reciprocity. 1/
@louis you’ve invented this motivation of harvesting contact information. that’s bullshit. contact information is much, much cheaper than this. and it’s not “more honest” to pay the voter rather than a broker. it creates a sense of obligation under norms of reciprocity, which a third party spying on you much more cheaply would not. that’s the only thing Musk is plausibly paying for. /fin
@louis @mattlehrer I don’t think any of us or a Slate author can resolve this. Musk is intentionally parsing the law to walk as close to the line of vote buying as he can without quite doing it. Perhaps Musk has consulted his expensive lawyers, and there is a strong legal history of similar operations that courts have found acceptable. Or, it wouldn’t be out of character for him to just risk it. An assumption that impunity can be purchased has worked for him.
@louis @mattlehrer I think it’s quite obviously an attempt to outright pay people with particular views to vote and vote in particular ways, even the quid-pro-quo is not enforceable. I hope his balls-first approach results in a well deserved crushing. You could make a chills free speech argument against, but money-as-free-speech, especially in an electoral context, has always been a terrible idea. I’d risk that slippery slope.
what if the enemy within is a conscience?
@louis it is very different. it’s explicitly targeting only voters, not customers, immediately before a critical, contested election, with a payout from a person who openly advocates particular candidates. there’s deniability — it’s not explicitly requesting a particular vote — but it’s really, really close. even if it were, one point of a secret ballot is to make such agreements difficult to enforce. that doesn’t mean they’re lawful as gentlemen’s agreements or ingratiations.
i hate to screenshot the bad place and its pimp. but… is this legal? https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1847115389676740899
Tweet from @elonmusk: If you're a registered Pennsylvania voter, you & whoever referred you will now get $100 for signing our petition in support of free speech & right to bear arms. Earn money for supporting something you already believe in! Offer valid until midnight on Monday. 11:20 PM • 10/17/24 • 1.1M Views
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