> It's kinda crazy how basically every law meant to protect people from spam has a special carve out for political campaigns.

Electioneering is a golden goose of money. There are billions in Ad spend every election cycle and everybody is in on it - Facebook, Google, Twilio, Sendgrid, the telecoms, phone banks and call centers, nonprofits, for profits. Nobody wants the money to stop because is pure margin what they charge the campaigns for.

Some political campaigns are relentless. I was able to get a local city council candidate’s campaign to stop calling me but I had to threaten to run against their candidate in the next election. Haven’t heard from them since, YMMV.

Sure, and like other targeted ad buyers being sold bullshit, you simply take it for granted that the data you get is accurate. Meanwhile, looking through my SMS history, I have 8 texts from this week addressed to either my grandmother, who is 86 and recovering from a stroke, or her last boyfriend, who is dead, telling me about GOP candidates in Nevada. I have never lived in Nevada. She no longer lives in Nevada. He no longer lives at all. I haven't voted since 2004. If you're just going to go by my "mood affiliation" or cultural leanings or whatever, voter or not, I'm sure as shit not a Republican. Thankfully, Nikki Haley finally stopped bugging me when she dropped out.

Which laws have special carve outs for political campaigns?

> bought the personal voting records of every American citizen from a data broker we found on the internet

The way they phrase this, it sounds like they physically bought a file containing these records, not e.g. access to some API that lets them send targeted messages.

If that is the case and that file can be bought so easily, I'm surprised some version of it hasn't leaked on the internet yet.

An email address, phone number, address and political leaning for every voting American? That would be the breach to end all breaches, probably both figuratively and literally.

it'll be breach of contract. Musk is promising that he will pay every valid voter in the swing states $47 if they fill out his form and certify they will vote for in the interest of the first and second amendments, if a eligible voter fulfills their part of the bargain and says to send their check to CaH, it's their right to do so. Musk can't just decide he doesn't like what they're doing with (now) their money and not pay up on his end of the bargain.

Musk is running a similar program for people in swing states, paying them $47 to refer potential Trump voters. If he doesn't pay, or pays selectively, he's violating various campaign finance laws.

All that means is that we don't have a one-person one-vote system. Some people's votes matter more than others. What we have is a case of civil inequality.

If we build a system where everyone's votes count the same (radical and extreme idea, I know), then each person will have the same fundamental incentive to vote.

The problem is brainwashing.

The formula is this: YOU learn all by yourself what all electable candidates say they want to do. YOU figure out all by yourself which ones LIE. One lie is enough, if they do it they keep doing it.

And then YOU chose which election program you want to vote for.

Ideally you chose what is best for the country but this is rather challenging for people. We can forgive them for being stuck thinking only of themselves.

Why would it be perfectly obvious if one is ordering food but not for elections???

Food might taste bad and you might get food poisoning. A bad choice doesn't mean years of suffering.

Does one not look at the menu card? Or do you ask your mum what to order? Do you roam around the restaurant looking what other people are eating? Do you order what CNN is screaming at you?

If people scream at you from all directions that you should order the snails in garlic butter, does that mean you will never have to look at the menu the rest of your life? You can just eat snails every day, everyone else is eating snails every day???? Why are you not eating snails?? It is the nr 1 most sold food! Don't you want snails to be the nr 1 food?

Then the restaurant switches to the cheapest worse possible snails because people will order it anyway because other people will order it.

Is this a display of good taste?

I hate apple but I buy iphone because they are good enough for what I need. I might get an android phone some day. They are good enough too.

I did actually look.

With elections no one is looking. People have no idea. Non of them! There is not one journalist who knows anything.

For each million voters one or two have watched a single video from a candidate other than the top 2. A video by a 5 year old on tiktok gets more attention online than the entire list of election programs.

I could see logic in getting advice from an expert on something or from your mum but if they know absolutely nothing about the topic?!?!

The voter is therefore brainwashed into irrelevance, she won't influence elections in any way.

The presidency is not the only election on the ballot.

And if you ask people who don't vote why not, very few of them are going to mention the electoral college. I would wager most people who don't vote couldn't even explain what the electoral college is.

It's interesting how Occupy Wall Street was ridiculed by the press. I think they were onto something even though I don't agree with almost everything else they also believed in.

There is more on your ballot than the president, you know.

They’re not technically paying for votes. That’s illegal. They’re exploiting the same loophole as Musk to, for practical purposes, pay for votes.

Think you might be projecting just a little?

For the same reason CPAC would have a banner saying "We're all domestic terrorists". Dark satire. Whether you find it appropriate or funny is an exercise left for the reader.

It's a game. the rules are here: https://s3.amazonaws.com/cah/CAH_Rules.pdf I'm personally playing the "god is dead" rule with my friends. I don't care about the US elections but this is a really fine game.

[edit] i know it's bad etiquette to comment on votes, but parent's question seems legitimate and can have usefull answers, it doesn't deserve downvotes imho.

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