By Scott Bauer, Associated Press
Madison, Wisconsin (AP) – The Wisconsin Democratic Prosecutor asked a court on Friday to block the billionaire Elon Musk to give a check for $ 1 million to voters this weekend, just two days before deciding on the race for the Supreme and Disput of the State.
The Attorney General Josh Kaul brought legal action from Dane County Circuit Court to prevent Musk from performing payments, which he said that he would do on Wisconsin on Sunday. Musk first declared in an article on his social media platform, X, which he planned to “put $ 2 million to a pair of voters who have already voted in the race.
Musk then displayed a clarification, saying that money will go to people who will be “spokespersons” for an online petition against “militant” judges. After first saying that the event would only be opened to people who had voted in the Supreme Court race, he said that attendance would be limited to those who signed the petition.
Also Friday, the Musk’s political action committee identified the recipient of his first $ 1 million gift – a man from Green Bay who had donated to the Wisconsin Gop and the Conservative candidate for the courts, and who has a story to support President Donald Trump and his program.
Musk removed the post on the Sunday gift of his social media platform, X, about 12 hours after initially published it Thursday evening. He expressed clarification about an hour later.
He posted that he planned to give a million dollars each to two voters at the event on Sunday, just two days before the elections which will determine the ideological control of the court in the state of the battlefield.
“I will also personally give two checks for a million dollars each in appreciation so that you take the time to vote,” said Musk’s Now Voileted Post. “It’s super important.”
The Supreme Court race has broken previous spending records for an American judicial election and has become a referendum on Musk and the first months of Trump’s administration.
Trump approved Brad Schimel, a republican colleague, and organized a town hall with him on Thursday evening.
“This is a very important race,” said Trump in brief remarks by phone, in a call organized by the Schimel campaign. “I know you think it’s local, but this is not the case. It’s really much more than local. The whole country looks. “
Schimel, a county judge of Waukesha, faces the county judge of Dane Susan Crawford in the elections on Tuesday. Crawford is supported by a wide range of democrats, including liberal judges who hold a majority of 4-3 at the Supreme Court of Wisconsin and former President Barack Obama. The retirement of this year of liberal justice puts the majority control of the court at stake.
Musk’s PAC said on Friday that he had granted $ 1 million to Scott Ainsworth, a mechanical engineer from Green Bay, for signing his Protestant petition against “activist” judges. In a video published on X, Ainsworth encouraged people to sign the petition and “go out and vote early for Brad Schimel”.
“If everyone in the Maga movement presents itself and votes for Brad Schimel, we will win,” said Ainsworth in the video.
Ainsworth has donated $ 350 to the Schimel campaign this year, according to campaign financing files. He also made dozens of Facebook publications since January to support Schimel, including photos of Campaign Events, the mentions of local Schimel and X messages from Trump urging Wisconsinites to vote for Schimel.
Andrew Romeo, spokesperson for the Musk’s political action committee, refused to say if Ainsworth was one of the two who would receive $ 1 million on Sunday.
Musk promised $ 100 to any recorded voter of Wisconsin who signed the petition or transmitted it to someone who did it.
This has raised questions about the question of whether the petition violated the law of the Wisconsin, which makes it a crime to offer, give, lend or promise to lend or give anything to encourage a voter to vote or not.
Musk modifying the terms of its offer can mitigate the circumstances, but that does not necessarily solve the legal issue, said Bryan Godar, lawyer for the staff of the State Democracy Research Initiative at the Faculty of Law of the University of Wisconsin.
“The question is whether the offers are” in order to encourage “people to vote or go to the polls, and there can be advanced arguments on each side of this issue,” she said in an email.
Any legal dispute of Musk’s payments could be found before the Supreme Court of Wisconsin.
Schimel, a former attorney general, was questioned about the petition Thursday by Wisn-TV.
“I got, frankly, I thought,” Should I sign this petition? I am against militant judges, but I don’t think I should do it “, said Schimel.
Asked about the price of a million dollars, Schimel said: “I don’t know what the criteria are to obtain.”
Crawford campaign spokesman Derrick Honeyman called Musk’s announced visit to Wisconsin a “last-minute desperate distraction”.
“Wisconsinites do not want a billionaire like Musk to tell them for those voting and, on Tuesday, voters should reject the lackey of Musk Brad Schimel,” he said.
Musk’s political action committee used an almost identical tactic before the White House election last year, offering to pay $ 1 million a day to Wisconsin voters and six other battlefield states that signed a petition supporting the first and second amendments.
A judge in Pennsylvania said that the prosecutors had not shown that effort was an illegal lottery and had allowed him to continue on election day.
Musk and the groups he has already spent more than $ 20 million to elect Schimel, while billionaire George Soros gave $ 2 million to strengthen Crawford, and Illinois Democratic Governor JB Pritzker donated $ 1.5 million.
The race arises while the Supreme Wisconsin Court should reign over abortion rights, the redistribution of the congress, the union power and the vote which could affect the mid-term of 2026 and the presidential election of 2028.
The associated press writer Christine Fernando in Chicago contributed to this report.
Originally published:
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