Ballot So Hard
Elon Musk’s political action committee (PAC) has sent out an “emergency squad” to issue last-minute fixes to disqualified ballots in Pennsylvania.
According to two people familiar with the endeavor who spoke to the New York Times, Musk’s America PAC is undertaking this so-called “ballot-curing” campaign as the race tightens in the state that could easily decide who becomes the next president.
In 33 states, groups can choose to deploy their own ballot curers on their own dime to secure more votes for their candidates. The process is a grueling one, involving operatives sifting through absentee ballots — many rejected for minor errors like forgetting to sign or get two witnesses — and contacting as many of the impacted people as possible to try to score more votes that would otherwise be discarded.
With the massive increase in voting by mail during and since the 2020 election, this labor-intensive process has taken on new importance.
In New York City, for instance, more than 8,000 mail-in ballots were saved by ballot curing in 2021’s municipal races. With Pennsylvania likely determining the fate of the nation, a margin of that size could be enough to sway it in Trump’s favor should Musk’s ballot curers manage to get salvage enough votes by the state’s 8 p.m. Election Day deadline.
Known Unknowns
America PAC has hired Blitz Canvassing — a chaotic subcontractor that hasn’t worked on any of the Trump campaign’s ground game in Pennsylvania — to do its ballot curing in the Keystone State. The report adds that the PAC is also employing ballot curers in Michigan, which has a longer window after the election to fix rejected mail-in ballots.
Though the NYT‘s unnamed insider sources did not say anything outright about America PAC’s concerns for Pennsylvania, the ballot-curing effort there does lend the effect of anxiety about the outcome of the election expected to be extremely tight.
While much is unclear about America PAC’s ballot-curing campaign, including whether or how much operatives are being paid and how many have been deployed, there’s a lot more sunlight on the process for Democratic volunteers, who have set up entire ballot-curing networks online dedicated to donating their time on and after Election Day for similar aims.
“Did more ballot curing this morning,” tweeted one progressive volunteer with the Working Families Party on the eve of E-Day. “Once again, the Zoom call maxed out its participants and we burned through our list in less than an hour.”
For some volunteers, the painstaking process of ballot-curing is clearly a labor of love — but when it comes to those on Musk’s side, money is the most likely motive.
More on Musk’s PA political maneuvers: Elon Musk’s Lawyers Say His $1 Million Winners Aren’t Chosen Randomly After All
