Summary
Two Pennsylvania voters, Austin Gwiazdowski and Jeanne Fermier, received $100 checks from Elon Musk’s pro-Trump “America PAC” despite not signing the PAC’s petition, which was required to qualify for payments.
The petition aimed to gather support for the First and Second Amendments and facilitate pro-Trump outreach.
Both voters expressed confusion and refused to cash the checks.
The PAC, funded by Musk, mailed 187,000 checks as part of efforts to boost Trump’s Pennsylvania support, while Musk’s political influence continues to rise.
Certainly no one would sign up random addresses to highlight his lack of checks. Teehee.
18 U.S. Code § 597 - Expenditures to influence voting
Whoever makes or offers to make an expenditure to any person, either to vote or withhold his vote, or to vote for or against any candidate; and Whoever solicits, accepts, or receives any such expenditure in consideration of his vote or the withholding of his vote— Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both; and if the violation was willful, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both. (June 25, 1948, ch. 645, 62 Stat. 721; Pub. L. 103–322, title XXXIII, § 330016(1)(H), Sept. 13, 1994, 108 Stat. 2147; Pub. L. 104–294, title VI, § 601(a)(12), Oct. 11, 1996, 110 Stat. 3498.)
The rich and powerful are above the law in the US
Link?
Lol what? Can you seriously not copy and paste 18 U.S. Code § 597 into any search engine for the internet?
How do I find the official source tho? The internet is full of misinformation and google loves to send me to content marketing third party untrustworthy trash.
Yes, you should always post a link to the authorative source
The official source is the US government…which is why they cited 18 U.S. Code § 597
Honestly, it should be self explanatory that is laws/codes would be from official American government websites.
Normally i would agree that links should be provided but if someone’s cites a specific law/code, the government site (state or federal, depending on what’s being cited) should be the immediate source of information.
We’re not going to handicap ourselves because you have an aversion for googling. Learn to research. It’s legal code…gee I wonder if a .gov link might be legit.
You’re on a link sharing website saying you dont want to share links. Is this your first time on the Internet?
Welcome, we share links here.
It’s not that you asked for a link, it’s your low effort way of asking that implies you are already skeptical of the information.
“Hey! I googled to look for it and I’m having a hard time finding where it officially says the statute. Mind sharing a link?”
They probably would have said “No problem. Let me google that for you. Here…”
I’m not asking for me. I’m trying to let you know that you should always cite your sources. The link is something you should always provide when you quote something.
This is just one link, there are better ones I’m sure on a .gov site. https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?path=/prelim@title18/part1/chapter29&edition=prelim
They are literally citing the law. That’s better than a link because links change all the time, but the citation remains valid because it’s referring to a code section and not some ephemeral html.
Depending on what you’re looking for (law or regulations), the official sites are code.house.gov or the Electronic Code of Federal regulations (ecfr.gov).
What? You have that backwards.
Laws change. Links will ensure you get the latest info.
Citations to the law include changes to that law. If you follow the citation above, it’ll have the date of adoption and the date of any amendments. It’ll also remain if the law is strikes from the books with a notation regarding its repeal.
Easy analogy: the 18th amendment. When it was repealed, they didn’t replace it with something else, but updated the language of the amendment to include its repeal. But a newspaper article from 1922 would still have incorrect information regarding the legality of alcohol sales.
Which is exactly why you should link to the source. You’re proving my point
No. Links change, link rot. Yes, laws change. Which is why I posted the USC. If the exact USC changed, you would know immediately. The gov could overhaul their website and links would die. If you have the code you can look it up on the official .gov sources. In this particular situation a link is not a guarantee. Maybe for other information? But doubtful. I personally have bookmarks from over 15+ years ago that are likely dead. Search skills are… a skill. To make Google better, learn the udm=14 trick .
Use a permalink
While Google has been circling down the toilet lately, if you at least try searching for what you want, and use half a brain to think about what you’re looking at, it’s not exactly super difficult. I have to Google similar stuff for work sometimes, and .gov is pretty much a sure thing that you’re getting a government source, which is pretty good when you’re looking for a government’s laws. I also get different major colleges, which is just as good. Especially since you’re reading legalese, not commentary on the law or whatever.
Or we can all do our duty to each other and share authorative sources to fight misinformation
I’m a random guy on the Internet. Frankly you should be doing your due diligence the same way you would on a Google search result anyway.
187,000 counts of trying to buy votes.
penalty: a lecture about the lowball offers.
What sucks: for the last 4 fucking years, we’ve had a constant stream of bullshit about “cheating and fraud” from Fuckface 45 and his cronies. It’s now normalized to call into question election integrity, so even if they actually fucked with the election, it’s highly unlikely anyone could figure out anything.
Thanks, exhaustion.
that’s all they do. why do you think they called everyone a pedophile. now they have one as a president, who is hiring Epstein’s pal as head of FDA and another predator as AG.
pollute the waters so much you can’t find anything. pretty much how it goes.
notice how all the whining about cheating and fraud all just stopped once the cheater ‘won’.
Whoops!
P.S. you mean for the last 8 fucking years
I guess. But he “won” in 2016 and didn’t bitch about election fraud or cheating. Strange, that.
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/nov/20/tweets/yes-donald-trump-claimed-fraud-after-2016-iowa-cau/ He absolutely started calling election fruad as early as possible and if I were a better google-er I’d find one of the multitude of references he made to the 2016 election being rigged, well past it being relevant.
You forget yourself .
He totally did, claimed Clinton couldn’t have won the popular vote.
He won and still claimed it was rigged.
he lost the popular vote. he was whining about that then, too.
Elon bought votes
It would be inspected under Trumps admin
He knew that.
How can Americans expect their country to work if shit like this is allowed?
It’s “working” as intended.
The the price of Twitter he could’ve given that to everyone.
How are those 200,000 amish going to cash their checks?
They still can use a bank… they’re just prohibited from directly using technology themselves. Other people can use technology on their behalf. I just picked up an Amish hitchhiker 2 weeks ago. He can’t drive a car but he can ride on one fine.
That’s really not true either. They don’t take issue with technology.
They have cell phones and washing machines. Some Amish communities just look like any old country highway with pickup trucks and harvesting equipment.
The particular type of Amish you’re thinking of will still have things like landlines and probably some electricity on the farm.
They take issue with depending on others, Amish strive to be self sufficient and independent. They don’t want to attach themselves to possessions, or things they can’t make and maintain themselves, but that doesn’t mean they can’t use them. They can and gladly do. They have rules on their use, they self regulate their use. Guy I went to school with has his wife go through and look through his phone. If she thought the was using it too much she’d hang on to it. He drove an old pickup and he and his brothers ran a junk yard part time specifically so he’d have access to parts for it. He was going to school to be a machinist, because there was a machine shop in his community and he didn’t want to bother the elders with learning how to use it. Soon as he finished the precision machine program he just went back to his farm.
prohibited from directly using technology themselves
Unless you count one of the other billions of loopholes they have… I live pretty near an Amish community, and often see them with cell phones & vapes. Power tools are okay “for work”. Hell, there’s a buggy I see about once a week with RGB LEDs on the sides.
Musk out there buying votes
Nothing could make me happier than the opportunity to take a hundred bucks from Musk that he himself accidentally sent to me.
Alright, plenty of things could make me happier. But it would still make me pretty happy.
Just as likely he’s now sending a pittance to other people in order to say he wasn’t targeting a group. You can send out a LOT of hundred dollar bills before you approach a billion.
If this is a slip up in some sort of voter fraud scheme…
