Elon Musk faces lawsuit in Texas over “voter lottery”

Elon Musk has much to be happy about, after the candidate he backed to take or, in this case retake, the White House, was successful with Donald Trump Jr. winning a landslide and becoming the 47th President of the United States.

Yet, the tech entrepreneur and his Republican political action committee, America PAC, attracted a lot of unflattering criticism, when they announced they would be running what was dubbed as an "election lottery."

Elon Musk’s voter lottery does not come down to chance at all

In late October, America PAC began handing out $1m to a "random" voter in a key swing state every day building up to the election.

Originally, America PAC claimed that the pool of voters included anyone who had signed a petition to support free speech and gun rights, but it later transpired that the contest was not "random," and that America Pac had preselected winners.

This was confirmed by a Musk lawyer on Monday, a day before a class-action lawsuit was filed in a Texas federal court in Austin on Tuesday.

The most recent lawsuit has been filed by Arizona resident Jacqueline McAferty who argued that the defendant has profited from her signing America PAC.

The filing read: "Had Plaintiff been aware that she had no chance of receiving $1,000,000, she would not have signed or supported the America PAC petition and would not have provided her personal data to Defendants."

Musk and America PAC did insist that the initiative was meant to galvanize voters to go and cast their ballots, and what was called a "lottery" was not tied to backing the Republican candidate at all.

The class-action lawsuit against America PAC in Texas is not the only legal move against the initiative. The US Department of Justice hurried to warn America PAC in October that it could be breaking the law, and in this concrete case, punishable by a prison sentence of up to five years.

Fraught political and legal context allow America PAC to carry on

Unabashed, America PAC and Musk continued the initiative which saw the Pennsylvania District Attorney’s Office bring a case against the pair last week.

This Monday, Judge Angelo Foglietta said that he would not block the initiative, but the proceedings revealed a crucial piece of information which a lawyer for the defense admitted – the winners were not picked randomly, but underwent scrutiny to make sure that they corresponded with the values of America PAC.

Chris Gober admitted that since the whole thing was not a "lottery" but a political activist campaign, it was understandable that America PAC was careful about who would get the prize.

"The $1m recipients are not chosen by chance. We know exactly who will be announced as the $1m recipient today and tomorrow," said Gober to Judge Foglietta.

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