Elon Musk's America PAC has been warned against awarding registered voters who signed a petition prize money at random.
The Department of Justice has sent a formal letter to Elon Musk's political action committee, warning that the tech billionaire's high-stakes lottery for registered voters may be in violation of federal law, CNN first reported on Wednesday.
Musk's America PAC has promised $1 million in prize money to swing state residents who have registered to vote and signed the group's petition supporting First and Second Amendment rights. Prize winners will be chosen randomly from the list of signatories.
Musk, who has repeatedly expressed support for the Republican presidential ticket, announced Saturday that he would be giving away $1 million each day until Election Day to registered voters who have signed the America PAC petition.
"We want to try to get over a million, maybe 2 million voters in the battleground states to sign the petition in support of the First and Second Amendment," said Musk at a Trump campaign event in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. "We are going to be awarding $1 million randomly to people who have signed the petition, every day, from now until the election."
Over the weekend, two signatories of the petition received their promised rewards of $1 million — a man from Harrisburg and a woman who is a resident of Pittsburgh.
America PAC has since received a letter from the Department of Justice's public integrity section. According to federal law, paying potential voters to register to vote is illegal, raising an issue with the requirement that one must be registered to vote in some specific states in order to be eligible to receive the prize money.
Musk, who was born in South Africa, has used monetary prizes to encourage residents of swing states to register to vote and support former President Donald Trump in his third bid for the nation's highest office. So far, Musk has invested $75 million in Trump's re-election campaign through America PAC.
Originally published on Latin Times.
