A firm linked to Elon Musk likely engaged in voter caging. On Tuesday, The Washington Post reported, “Election officials in North Carolina and Georgia are warning about suspicious voter-registration mailers linked to Elon Musk.” I am sure it is no coincidence that Senate races in North Carolina and Georgia are two states Musk and his MAGA minions are likely to lose.
As The Post explained, bulk mailings that appeared to be official requests for voter registrations came from a group called “Ready to Register.” At first blush, it appears the group’s work was shockingly sloppy (which tracks with other Musk efforts). The North Carolina State Board of Elections said in a statement that the mailings went “to an unknown number of citizens with an outdated voter registration application which includes four political parties that are no longer recognized in North Carolina.”
Georgia’s Paulding County Board of Elections & Registration said it had “received reports indicating that some mailings have been sent to deceased individuals and that outdated data sources may have been used in the mailing process.”
This quacks like a case of voter caging. The Brennan Center for Justice describes voter caging as a “notoriously unreliable” practice of “sending mail to addresses on the voter rolls, compiling a list of the mail that is returned undelivered, and using that list to purge or challenge voters registrations on the grounds that the voters on the list do not legally reside at their registered addresses.” In other words, it’s a dodgy voter suppression effort to identify and disenfranchise registered voters “solely on the basis of an undeliverable mailing.”
The “Ready to Register” group seems to have gone to considerable lengths to hide its affiliation with Musk. The letters were signed by a project coordinator that The Post “was unable to locate in public records.” But the group used a post office box in Alexandria, Virginia and “its incorporation records in Delaware used a corporate agent that disguises its ownership,” The Post found. But its “website’s source code links to another group affiliated with Musk’s political outfit, America PAC, suggesting the websites share the same operator. The website’s code also says, ‘By providing your telephone number and email, you consent to receive emails, calls, and text messages from America PAC.’”
Meanwhile, Musk and his America PAC are still dealing with the legal fallout from his previous election-interfering scheme: his voter-buying promise to give away $1 million to “random” registered voters who signed his conservative-oriented petition. In reality, they were handpicked to be good “spokespeople” for his America PAC.” A low-ball estimate for the damages Musk may be liable for is $47 million. That’s not an insignificant amount of money, even for a trillionaire.
And did I mention that Musk may be an illegal voter, himself? The South African immigrant almost certainly lied on his citizenship application, which is illegal and can be grounds for revocation of his citizenship.