They're paying people to collect signatures... not for the signatures themselves. This is specifically allowed in most (all?) states for organizations to be able to pay people a wage to spend the time collecting signatures for ballot initiatives. Most states require the person collecting signatures to be registered with the state if they are being paid however. So unless they're doing that and sponsoring and registering every person collecting these signatures with the State, they are likely still violating the law there. Volunteer unpaid circulators don't have to be registered, but if you're getting paid for it, you're probably required to be registered to an organization that's responsible for what you do.
Note: This is usually done via a standard hourly wage, or a price per sheet of good signatures. Many sigs (I've seen 1/3 to 1/2) are thrown out because the requirements are extremely strict for processing. A good signature or sheet of signatures can be completely invalidated by an error made by the person collecting it, or because it's on a page with the wrong county listed (even though every signature line also requires an address to verify). Simple errors unrelated to signatures get entire pages thrown out.
Source: Was trained and registered as a paid petition circulator with the State of Arizona earlier this year.
Same in Hungary, where anti-hate speech laws are only being enforced seldom, and the last such incident was due to an opposition politician saying "heterosexual white christian man" on TV, while the now doxxed editors of kuruc info can still deny the holocaust on their foreign hosted webshite, that is also being partly funded by a Florida Republican (of course).
Not sure it breaks any laws, but I love how they show how slow the process would be. The election would be over before any of it mattered, and if Trump won, it's federal so he could pardon any of it.
See below. It would take minimum 50 days just to start the process... Which isn't even anything but letters at that point.
"Notice to respondents
Within five days after receiving a proper complaint, OGC sends each respondent a copy of the complaint and a description of the Commission's compliance procedures. The respondent has 15 days from the date of receipt to respond in writing, explaining why no action should be taken. In the case of a complaint that does not satisfy the requirements, the respondent nevertheless receives a copy of the complaint and an explanation that the complainant has 15 days to correct the complaint. If the complainant corrects and refiles the complaint, the respondent is sent a copy of the corrected complaint and is given 15 days to submit a response to the Commission."
Paying people for votes is very much against the law. And Trump's shitty behavior doesn't really mean Elon's bullshit shouldn't be reported. You think Trump's going to pardon these morons for their participation? He pardoned two cabinet/campaign members from his original bid for office rather than the reelection debacle, both of which were from the Mueller investigation. He pardoned none of the co-conspirators for his 2020 re-election antics. Trump only does favors for people that are valuable to him, and Elon's worthless for anything but his money and his access to the raw twitter firehose.
corruption yes, but what's to stop an organized group, having one member refer the other hundred members, split the money, then not vote the way the pledge is implying they should. (democrats do support the Constitution, some could argue more than the maga lip service)
. * wink *
not saying anyone should do it... purely theoretical thought experiment
I don't understand why Elon is fighting for free speech while at the same time banning people on his platform for saying certain words like cis, anything leftist and anyone saying anything bad about him. When Elon is so pro free speech, why not stop the censorship on his own platform?
My friend, Elon is not fighting for free speech. It's not just him, but because he owns that company, it looks extra bad when he shows his own hypocrisy. Many Washington Democrats and Republicans wish they could censor anyone they disagree with. They only pretend to support the First Amendment when it's something that backs their agenda.
Also, for someone like him, being hypocritical is a virtue. He's signaling to potential allies that he's willing to ignore the rules if they would inconvenience him and his friends.
Yes but also, some people in swing states are going to make a lot of money signing up registered never trumpers. If I'm any kind of large social group we're all signing it. Yeah we each only get 47 dollars but together we can make Elon hurt right in the wallet.
Not really. He's not paying for votes. He's paying for people to sign a pledge and give them their email and/or phone number so he can advertise to them.
It's pretty much the dumbest way to go about this.
Wait. I get paid $47 to refer a friend to sign a petition to get bombarded with MAGA bullshit? Good thing. I am capable of making "real" good friends in swing states. I imagine they won't be bothered with getting spam emails.
Only registered Democrats can vote in a Democratic primary election, where the Democratic party selects its candidates for a general election.
Only registered Republicans can vote in a Republican primary election, where the Republican party selects its candidates for a general election.
Party registration plays no role in a General election: you can vote for anyone, even if they are not a member of your own party.
Voter registration (as opposed to party registration) is simply a declaration of your residency and thus eligibility to vote in elections at the state, county, city, congressional district, school district, ward, and possibly even lower level elections. (Three homeowners on my small, dead-end dirt road are the only ones eligible to "vote" on whether a special tax should be assessed against our properties to pave our road. )
That's so weird to me because it seems to me like is eliminates vote secrecy. I mean, not literally but it must be pretty rare that someone registered as X votes for Y.
I suppose this exists in my country to some extent. Only registered members of the party vote for internal elections. But my country is smaller, as are the parties, and there are more of them.
American elections are not actually elections, they are private decisions made by Party Committees and votes are just a suggestion by the “constituents”.
Each party privately selects their own candidate to run, independent of the voters’ will, and then the actual “government” election run by the government is where those privately selected agents get to duke it out in public.
As always, liberal accusations of “authoritarian” socialist states are just another confession. The DNC plays this game the same way the RNC does.
What other logical explanation is there for the lack of universal public healthcare, education, social safety net, Roe v Wade not being codified into law, PATRIOT act, Glass Steagall repeal, 2008 bank bailout, SLABS imploding the economy, illegitimate Supreme Court, RBG and Pelosi holding onto power until they are literal corpses, 6 million dead civilians in the Middle East, 200,000 dead Palestinians, women’s and LGBT rights being stripped away with literally zero federal pushback, committing state sponsored terrorism on Cuba for a century, the list goes on forever.
All done with wholehearted and enthusiastic DNC complicity.