The judge’s ruling was on Krasner’s emergency motion to shut down the sweepstakes right away. There is still an underlying case on the merits of whether Musk’s giveaway is illegal under state gaming law.

Just to be clear, this wasn’t the judge ruling that it was legal, it was the judge deciding not to issue an emergency order immediately halting the lottery. I’m honestly not surprised given the fact that there is only a day left and the damage is already done.

“Our intent all along is to only provide compensation to registered voters and US citizens, and avoid any chance that we are somehow providing funds to foreign nationals or someone with ill-intent,” Young said.

Young, the super PAC’s treasurer, said the group received plenty of sign-ups from people who weren’t registered to vote – and those people “received a follow-up opportunity and were encouraged to check their registration status,” Young testified.

If there was any doubt that they were using this to get people to register to vote, this added detail should make it pretty clear. They were telling people who weren’t registered to register in order to get paid / enter a lottery.

Technically there’s a non-zero chance of the margin being within three votes for any population of voters.

I propose that anyone trying defend a practice against claims that it is cruel and unusual punishment should have to be subjected to that practice. And any judge ruling it isn’t should have to do the same. If they can’t or won’t, then it’s almost certainly cruel and unusual.

Also pretty sure that creating a voter registration site that only appears to register voters in swing states (while gathering their data so you can follow up with only the ones you want to target) could also lead to criminal charges if the matter were to be pursued.