Requests investigation into America PAC and its leaders for conspiring to interfere with the Constitutional right to vote for some American citizens in battleground states
Defend The Vote (DTV), one of the nation’s leading pro-democracy organizations, has filed a criminal referral with the Department of Justice requesting an investigation into Elon Musk and his super PAC.
America PAC appears to have violated federal law by conspiring to interfere with the constitutional right to vote of certain American citizens in battleground states through a deceptive website.
“Elon Musk’s PAC told people they were going to help them register to vote. They led people to believe they were registered to vote. Now, when those people show up to cast a ballot on Election Day they will be turned away,” DTV Executive Director Brian Lemek said. “This is voter suppression. It’s unethical. And it’s illegal.”
The violation of federal law is a felony and one that the Justice Department has used to successfully prosecute and convict individuals for a wide range of voter suppression schemes.
The maximum penalty for this violation can include up to 10 years in prison and up to a $250,000 fine.
Details of the Criminal Referral:
- Defend the Vote is requesting the United States Department of Justice investigate whether America PAC and its leadership, including co-founder Elon Musk, violated federal law by conspiring to interfere with the constitutional right to vote of certain visitors to the PAC’s website.
- The site purportedly offered visitors assistance in registering to vote. However, only people from certain states were directed to an actual voter registration page, while others, who lived in Presidential election battleground states, were asked to fill out a web form that provided detailed personal information to the PAC but were not actually registered to vote.
- Those individuals were led to believe that they had been duly registered to vote, when they were not. When they attempt to vote in the upcoming November election, they will likely be denied.
- This conduct would likely violate 18 U.S.C. § 241, the conspiracy against rights statute.
- It is a felony for “two or more persons [to] conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person in any State . . . in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States.” This includes the right to vote.
- DOJ has relied on this statute to prosecute a wide range of conduct designed to interfere with the right to vote, including schemes “designed to ensure the election of a favored candidate by blocking or impeding voters believed to oppose that candidate from getting to the polls . . . includ[ing by] providing false information to the public – or a particular segment of the public – regarding the qualifications to vote.”
- Among other voter suppression activities, Section 241 has been used to prosecute conspiracies to destroy ballots, prevent valid voter registration forms for members of a particular political party from being submitted, and jam phone lines in order to prevent voters from requesting rides to the polls.
- Use of the internet to create public confusion about how to vote has also been found to amount to a conspiracy against rights. In March of 2023, a social media influencer was convicted for participating in a scheme to create and disseminate online misinformation intended to suppress Democratic voter turnout in the 2016 election. The co-conspirators created and shared content designed to trick supporters of Hillary Clinton into believing that they could cast their ballots by posting particular hashtags on social media, or by texting Clinton’s name to a particular phone number. At least 4,900 people texted that number.
