A Democratic group focused on voting rights is asking the Justice Department to investigate a pro-Donald Trump super PAC affiliated with billionaire supporter Elon Musk.
The group, Defend the Vote, is the latest entity to raise legal questions about America PAC after a report that it promised to register people to vote but merely collected their data if they lived in politically competitive states.
“A scheme to trick people into believing that they have successfully registered to vote would put those individuals at risk of being unable to exercise their constitutional right to vote in future elections,” Defend the Vote’s executive director, Brian Lemek, wrote in a letter to Justice Department officials.
America PAC did not respond to a request for comment.
America PAC has attracted increasing attention — and scrutiny — as it has spent millions of dollars helping to build a field operation for Trump. It has spent at least $26.8 million so far, according to Federal Election Commission records.
Tesla CEO Musk, who endorsed Trump last month, has not made a disclosed donation to the super PAC. But he has publicly claimed ownership of it, and his associates in the tech industry have given to it.
The report this month from CNBC said the super PAC ran online ads soliciting information from viewers under the guise of registering them to vote. But if they indicated that they lived in a battleground state, they were not taken to their state’s voter registration form, but were instead asked to submit “highly detailed personal information” to the super PAC, according to CNBC.
Election officials in at least two battleground states, Michigan and North Carolina, have said they are looking into America PAC’s activities. The PAC’s lawyers got in touch with the Michigan Department of State, which then thanked them for “confirming that the website is offering voter registration and that your client plans on using the gathered information to actually register voters,” according to a copy of the letter obtained by The Washington Post.
Read the the story in the Washington Post
