Canvassers of Elon Musk's super PAC say they were threatened and abused: report
Canvassers hired by America PAC, the pro-Trump organization funded by tech billionaire Elon Musk and his allies, were abused and threatened to work as hard as possible, according to a new report by WIRED.
Musk, who has turned to the far-right after taking over the X platform, formerly Twitter, has put at least $75 million into the super PAC, which is effectively running much of former President Donald Trump's voter outreach operation in several battleground states.
"In Michigan, canvassers and paid door knockers for the former president, contracted by a firm associated with America PAC, have been subjected to poor working conditions: A number of them have been driven around in the back of a seatless U-Haul van, according to video obtained by WIRED, and threatened that their lodging at a local motel wouldn’t be paid for if they didn’t meet canvassing quotas," said the report.
Additionally, "one door knocker alleges that they didn’t even know they were signing up for anything having to do with Musk or Trump," saying that the job description was merely to go door to door surveying people's voter preferences, and recruits weren't informed until after signing the contract, complete with a nondisclosure agreement, it was a Musk-backed GOP canvass for Trump.
Blitz Canvassing, the subcontractor that handles the outreach operations of America PAC and other GOP causes, contractually obligated door knockers to “maintain a 17-22% engagement rate during the campaign” — vastly higher than the typical percent of knocks a canvasser can usually expect to successfully contact the homeowner.
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Meanwhile, America PAC canvassers and the audio recordings of a manager suggest they were threatened that if they didn't manage over 1,000 doors knocked per week, they wouldn't get their hotel rooms compensated and possibly would be on the hook for airfare home, too.
“What’s gonna happen is, they’re gonna stop paying for these rooms,” said one manager in a recording. “And then you’re gonna end up having to pay for it yourself. You can’t do that with no money.”
This comes after extensive reporting about other troubles at America PAC and Blitz Canvassing, including glitched software that sent canvassers to the homes of Kamala Harris supporters by mistake, and incidents of canvassers using GPS spoofing to pretend they knocked on more doors than they had, to the point that 20 to 25 percent of their voter contacts in Arizona and Nevada may have been faked. Blitz Canvassing has responded to these reports by threatening employees not to talk to the press.
It also comes as America PAC has faced multiple threats of a criminal investigation.
In August, the Michigan Secretary of State investigated an apparent scheme where the group was harvesting voter's personal data through an inaccurate voter registration portal. And this month, America PAC received warnings from the Justice Department and a lawsuit from the Philadelphia district attorney over a $1 million daily lottery to registered voters who sign Musk's petition "supporting the Constitution," which experts have argued could constitute illegal vote-buying.