America PAC, a political action committee created by Elon Musk, is being investigated for allegedly collecting voter data.
While this investigation has been announced by the Michigan secretary of state’s office, legal experts have stated that they’re not sure that any state laws have actually been broken by this PAC.
Musk’s PAC Under Investigation
America PAC was created by Musk, and the Tesla and SpaceX billionaire has also claimed that he has helped fund this political action committee.
However, now America PAC is under investigation by Michigan because of its efforts in trying to collect voter data.
About America PAC
America PAC has received a lot of attention, thanks to its backing from Musk. The PAC has also made headlines for supporting former President Donald Trump in his bid to return to the White House in November’s election.
Reporting had also previously suggested that Musk would be giving Trump about $45 million a month for his campaign. However, Musk has said he never actually said he would do this.
Collecting Voter Data
According to the Michigan secretary of state’s office, America PAC has seemingly been trying to collect voter information from those in Michigan, a battleground state for the upcoming election.
This allegedly has been done on the PAC’s website, where it has a section for people to “register to vote.”
The PAC’s Misleading Website
Once people click on the “register to vote” tab on the PAC’s website, users then can submit their address, ZIP code, and phone number.
However, people from battleground states such as Michigan seem to have different responses than others — and now, accusations of voter data collection have been rampant.
Not Registering to Vote
Once users from Michigan and other battleground states enter this information, they should be brought to a page that says “thank you” and then has the rest of the voter registration process below.
This process allows them to fully register to vote. However, now, this PAC doesn’t have any other form to allow users to complete, thereby pushing an inaccurate voter registration process.
How Voter Information Is Being Used
The Michigan secretary of state’s office has explained that this investigation has opened up to see how voter information is being used.
A spokeswoman for the office said, “Every citizen should know exactly how their personal information is being used by PACs, especially if an entity is claiming it will help people register to vote in Michigan or any other state.”
Violations of State Law
The office also explained that this investigation is underway to understand if the PAC violated state law in how they were collecting voter information.
“While the America PAC is a federal political action committee, the Department is reviewing their activities to determine if there have been any violations of state law. We will refer potential violations to the Michigan Attorney General’s office as appropriate,” the spokeswoman stated.
Improper Links
A PAC source has since explained anonymously that the website was running properly, especially when the group registered with the Federal Election Commission earlier this year in May.
However, this source also admitted that the links on the site now aren’t working properly as they should.
A New Website Launch
This source also insinuated that the PAC would be launching a brand new website in the next few weeks, which may explain why these broken links haven’t been fixed.
However, critics of this PAC have pointed out that it seems odd that only voters in battleground states aren’t being allowed to complete the voter registration process through the PAC’s website.
A Troubling Situation
Some legal experts have voiced their concern about this situation. Mary Massaron, a partner at the law firm Plunkett Cooney, explained how troubling this situation could become.
“It is very troubling for any candidate or PAC-funded project to deliberately fail to provide information or a link to register to vote when someone asks because they would potentially vote for the opposing candidates,” Massaron said.
What Laws Were Broken?
Meanwhile, other legal experts have stated that it’s unclear whether any state laws were actually broken by this PAC.
Though this situation is troubling to these experts, they have admitted that no state laws may have been broken.
