Ballot bribes: Elon Musk's voter lottery sets a worrying precedent

选票贿赂:埃隆·马斯克的选民抽奖引发担忧先例

Editor's Picks from The Economist

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2024-10-28

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A handpicked article read aloud from the latest issue of The Economist. Elon Musk's latest scheme to secure a Trump presidency—a $1m swing state lottery—is marred by questions of legality. It's also dangerous to democracy.  Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—subscribe to Economist Podcasts+
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  • The Economist Hi, this is John Pridot,

  • host of Checks and Balance, our US politics podcast.

  • Welcome to Editors' Picks.

  • We've chosen an article from the latest edition of The Economist for you.

  • Please do have a listen.

  • With less than two weeks to go, America's election remains a coin toss.

  • If anything, though, the coin now slightly favors Donald Trump.

  • Our election forecast model puts him ahead for the first time since August.

  • When the race is this tight, the list of things that could prove decisive is long.

  • Among them is Elon Musk's disingenuous scheme to induce Americans to vote for Mr Trump with a chance to win $1 million.

  • Mr. Musk could have any number of motives.

  • He runs a company that makes electric vehicles or EVs.

  • Mr. Trump wants to put huge tariffs on foreign cars and frequently discourages Detroit's carmakers from producing EVs.

  • A Trump victory could knock out Tesla's competition juicing its share price.

  • Mr. Musk also has eugenic views about gifted people having too few children.

  • and he has used his ownership of X to promote perfectly legally objectionable opinions about the replacement of white voters with immigrants.

  • The scheme works as follows.

  • Voters in the seven swing states are invited to sign a petition in support of the First Amendment,

  • free speech, and the Second Amendment,

  • guns, no matter that neither clause is in imminent danger from Congress,