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[flagged] Cards Against Humanity Launches a Super Pac to Match Elon Musk's Super Pac (apologize.lol)
86 points by bun_at_work 55 days ago | hide | past | favorite | 89 comments



It seems some people are surprised that they were able to buy data on who voted and how they lean.

I wasn't surprised because I worked on a campaign before. It's ridiculous how much information you can get about voters for not a lot of money.

You can get their phone number and email address that they provided with their voter registration, and the do not call list does not even apply (nor the do not spam list). You can call and email with reckless abandon.

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


> 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.


TV companies too, getting that sweet sweet ad money. I remember feeling in the 2008 Democrat primary race that TV had a split agenda. The nomination was definitely Obama's, but the TV reports kept talking about a race, because (my guess) it keeps viewers tuning in...


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?



Neither of those laws mention political campaigns at all - both laws are directed at commercial activity.


Exactly. They specifically omit political campaigns so that they aren't covered.


You could say the same about emails between friends or emails from churches - they don’t cover things that aren’t within the intended scope of the bill.


Are you being needlessly pedantic just to be contrarian?

But since we're being pedantic, it actually does apply to churches, depending on their legal structure.

And if you were actually following this at the time like I was, you would know that originally it was going to include political campaigns until a bunch of politicians said they wouldn't support it unless they got a carve out.


Mainly the one that establishes the Do Not Call list (it exempts political campaigns from any penalty) and CAN-SPAM which exempts political emails from any penalties.


I don't really care about US elections in general, but your rules are broken. Here are interesting bits:

How do you know who didn’t vote?

We formed a Super PAC and bought the personal voting records of every American citizen from a data broker we found on the internet. It’s pretty fucked up.

How do you know who’s “blue leaning”?

We got your partisan lean from the same data broker who sold us your voting history. You wouldn’t believe how easy it was for us to get this stuff. So fucked up!

This rules. Can I give you more than $7.99?

If you agree with us that this is a pretty good idea, you can donate as much as you want during checkout for your 2024 Election Pack. Literally no limit, because we’re a Super PAC. This is the kind of crazy shit that happens when the Supreme Court rules that “money is speech” and corporations can spend unlimited amounts of cash influencing elections. If you want to make a very large donation, please email us and we'll work it out.


> 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.


I didn't work with election data but I dealt with Data brokers and they worked both ways. They offered API as a service access or a single bulk download for special pricing. I was surprised how relatively cheap it was considering all the data they offered.


Not a lot of people just how much voter data is available out there and how easy it is to check if someone voted and their party affiliation.

On a side note, if folks are interested in US politics humor/election party card games, I'd also check out democrazy.com


Can someone explain what law forces Musk to pay them $47 for everyone that fills out a form?


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.


Huh. If this is true, I'm surprised this "program" hasn't yet caught on as a Tiktok "here's how to get $50 for free if you live in one of these states" trick.


> Musk can't just decide [to] not pay up on his end of the bargain.

Have I got a list of times he's done exactly that.

Granted he also loses a lot in court. He even had to go through paying $44B once...


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.


Isn’t it flat illegal to pay people to vote? Otherwise Trump or Harris could just… directly bribe people to vote for them through a cutout.


He's not paying people to vote. He's paying people to register to vote.


I believe that too is illegal. Isn't he just paying them to "sign" a petition that they'd vote to support the 1st and 2nd amendments?


He’s paying a person $47 for every registered swing state voter that that person refers to the SuperPAC and that follows through on signing a petition to support first and second amendment rights.

It appears to be lawyered loopholes around paying people to register to vote directly. Which is illegal as you mentioned.

Sure plenty of people will sign it for the money and then forget about it, but some sliver of people that sign will feel some sliver of obligation to vote for the candidate that the petition obviously wants them to vote for. A sliver here and there could be enough to turn this currently close election.


It's not if its a superPAC, apparently.


That seems to be the work around.


This has always been one of my favorite questions to think about.

If votes could be legally sold how much would it cost to buy the US Presidential election?


With the lax finance laws we have I’m guessing China could install a regime that would actively help them take Taiwan for less than ten billion, to give one example. It would be cheaper to buy the whole US military than build one aircraft carrier.

It’s why this or anything like it should be very illegal and why Citizens United is a threat to US national security.


See, that’s the thing. Neither naughty ol’ mr car, nor the card game, are paying people to vote. Not technically. US election law is… not great. Note the digs at Citizens United in the FAQ.


There is really any mystery as to why half the voters don't vote?

Unless you live in one of the half dozen "swing states", your vote is just a symbolic gesture with little chance of impacting the overall outcome.


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.


Direct election of the US president would be an improvement. Expanding the House of Representatives as originally formulated, or similarly, would help. Making the Senate reflect the population better by dividing populous states, and/or a statehood option for Puerto Rico and DC would help. Striking down gerrymanders would help.

More contested down-ballot races would help. No excuse for the parties to not have strong organization and candidate recruitment at that level. No changes to laws needed for this.


> we don’t have a one-person one-vote system.

Correct, and that’s a good thing! Intelligence is not evenly distributed among individuals, and susceptibility to psyops and propaganda is a huge issue. The plain truth of the matter is that a majority of people simply aren’t qualified to weigh in on national issues. True democracy works when you’ve got a small group of like-minded individuals of roughly equal stature (13 original colonies) but not when you’ve got an entire empire (Roman republic)


Well, it's a federation of states so you can't quite do that unless you abandon that conceit.


No, devolving powers to the states is what makes it a federation. Having a state-representative legislative chamber makes it a federation. Electing a federal president via popular vote does not indicate defederation any more than the existence of the House of Representatives does.


The states negotiated terms before they agreed to join. Not having a popular vote is part of the reason why we have a federal system in the first place. People can argue pros and cons, but it's fairly meaningless since we're already in an established deal, and it's very unlikely that the many states will agree to undo that deal.


Amending the Constitution does seem like a fairly remote possibility, but then there's also this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Intersta...


Electing a president via popular vote would give populous states disproportionate influence over the country compared to other states. That is important because the president could do obnoxious things against the best interest of any particular state, especially ones with less influence. The stuff happening to your home state is way more relevant to your life than your political party or special interests.


> Electing a president via popular vote would give populous states disproportionate influence over the country compared to other states.

It would give every human, who has the right to representation, exactly proportionate influence. The weird fashy retired cops in Idaho will have to settle for having the same number of senators as Californians have.


That is not a good argument. People have a right to self-determination. The same logic of populism can be applied on a trans-national scale, even. There is no limit because under your logic, any person's vote is as good as any other's. The fact is we have states to provide a level of autonomy and independence to geographically separate groups of people, so they can live with more freedom. I don't care if the entire state of California is against how I live, because they are thousands of miles away and deserve less say in how I live than my neighbors. The federal system we have strikes a balance between the two.

A president of a federation such as the US must represent the individual states equally, because there can only be one president and that seat has disproportionate power. I really think people flip flop on the popular vote issue based on whether they think it helps their particular party or not, which is unbelievably short-sighted.


> The fact is we have states to provide a level of autonomy and independence to geographically separate groups of people, so they can live with more freedom.

On this specific point- do you contend that unitary republics, such as France, are inherently less free than federal entities? How are provinces less free than states? Is Canada less free than the U.S.?


Did the EU get less free after Lisbon when it transferred power from the commission and council of ministers (each state has similar influence) to the parliament (each person has similar influence)? Like, that was about the least contentious part of Lisbon; it was broadly popular. Very few people would think they lost freedom through it.


The effect I just described is just one factor affecting the freedom of a group. Sometimes you do need to have a larger entity around beyond your local government for various reasons. I would think that the potential for the worst tyranny is smaller in geographically smaller countries or units, because people can leave. For example, people who don't like a city or county can leave it. Provinces and states are also possible to leave behind if you can't stand the laws. Countries are trickier to leave because of international relations, but it is still possible. I also expect small countries are easier to leave than big ones. It's not ideal to have to move, but at least you can move away from localized issues. Some localized issues may also be avoided by seeking input from only the people who will be affected. All in all, I think it is easier to find consensus among smaller groups, and the larger a group gets the harder it is to make rules or policies that everyone is happy with.


Arbitrary lines on maps are arbitrary. North & South Dakota are far more similar than north and south California.


The lines on maps are not arbitrary. People decided them by choice and in some cases by force. You might feel no particular attachment to your state, but if another state decided that your state should be exploited in some way, your primary source of support would be your neighbors within those so-called arbitrary lines.


I used North and South Dakota for a reason. The only reason they were split was to hijack the Senate.


That is misleading. There was no state of Dakota. The two became states at the same time. Even Wikipedia says this:

>Regionalist tensions between the northern and the southern parts of the territory were present since the beginning.

So, the split was not likely about senate seats. It was about people getting along within each state.


Damn imagine if everyone's vote was equally weighted, what a disaster for democracy that would be. Mob rule!!


I sense some sarcasm. But you ought to know that the founders, along with Aristotle and other Greeks (basically, the inventors of democracy), were afraid of mobs and sought to temper the whims of the people.

States are given representation proportional to their populations, and also equal representation (in the Senate). The EC and House seats aren't just based on voter turnout, voter population, or even the actual number of citizens in the state (which is rather problematic). So this whole push for direct democracy in the presidential election is stupid. Yes, swing states are a thing, but only because the other states vote consistently in a particular way.

Another problem with using the popular vote to decide the presidential election is that it inventivizes fraud. If someone managed to corrupt a few populous states, they could generate extremely high numbers of fake votes to drown out every other state.


Current system theoretically allows for the presidency to be won even though the candidate got less than 30% of the popular vote. In my opinion the existence of such an edge case makes it undefendable.

What do you mean here by "incentivizes fraud"? Lying on the campaign trail is not fraud. In any case, the same argument about fraud still applies, you just need to target swing states.


Every system has edge cases. You can't defend the possibility of millions of people having zero representation just because they did not vote either.

I think it's obvious what fraud I'm talking about: fraudulent votes. It stands to reason that a large state can generate more fraudulent votes than a small state can generate legitimately. Fraud is always an issue but it is more of an issue with popular vote because who can question extremely high voter turnout?


Can you name edge cases of popular vote system that electoral college system does not also have?

You do realize that just because the popular vote is national does not mean that all the votes would be dumped at a desert in New Mexico and then tallied? Vote tally would still happen at the level of polling places and then aggregated - exactly how it's done in the electoral college system now. The only difference would be an introduction of one more level of aggregation (from state to nationwide). You could still detect fraud at earlier stages.


I did already name an edge case of popular vote that the electoral college system doesn't have (sorry, in another thread). Actually more than one. If a state has low turnout for any reason then their contribution to the election is proportionally diminished with popular voting. That DOES NOT happen with EC, because the weight of the state is decided by its population.

>You do realize that just because the popular vote is national does not mean that all the votes would be dumped at a desert in New Mexico and then tallied? Vote tally would still happen at the level of polling places and then aggregated - exactly how it's done in the electoral college system now.

I don't trust the vote counting systems we have now. We have unverified ballots by mail, voting without ID, and unaccountable voting machines. If you look into it you'll find that it is surprisingly easy to harvest votes from invalids at nursing homes, homeless people, and dead people. There is no way for me to to make sure my own vote is counted and no illegitimate ones are counted. Compare our elections that are increasingly uncertain for weeks or months to other countries like Argentina where everyone is required to vote and the result is known the next day.


Yeah, people that don't care enough to vote should not be weighted in, that's the whole point. Weighing them in does not mean they actually get represented. The only problem is people that want to vote but can't are going to be disenfranchised, but that is true in both systems and should be addressed separately. This is what is actually exploitable with EC - suppress the vote of a specific population within a state and you're going to kill 2 birds with 1 stone as they not only didn't vote against you, but they also will be weighted in towards you on the national scale.

Your entire point about fraud does not get worse with popular vote system so it's irrelevant here.

Does Argentina get automatic recounts? How many people are covered by a single polling station in Argentina? How many people count the votes within a single polling station? Those are all the things that'll affect how quickly the results are known, not how the votes get aggregated later. And EC can slow things down significantly more than popular vote (one slower state could be deciding factor for EC even though nationwide results would already be known because the uncertainty is too small to matter on national scale; Bush v. Gore).


The current system incentivizes fraud in swing states, so the fraud is simply shifted elsewhere.


I think it's different. In any case, you can imagine a scenario where different states have wildly different voter turnout. That could even happen due to a natural disaster such as the hurricanes we've seen in the past few weeks. How messed up would it be for a state ravaged by a hurricane, tsunami, earthquake, or whatever to have its influence diminished because people were unable to vote? It is already bad enough that the votes could be skewed based on specific counties. But imagine the whole state losing its actual representation because of power outages and stuff. It might even encourage some states to sabotage other states, to reduce turnout.


> But imagine the whole state losing its actual representation because of power outages and stuff.

What you are describing would be a problem regardless of the presence of the electoral college.


It is more of a problem without the electoral college, because as I said the popular vote is sensitive to voter turnout. No turnout means no representation. The electors can always step up to represent their state, and if even they can't then presumably the entire election would be delayed.


I’m not sure if the electors are legally allowed to decide in the absence of voter turnout. Besides, if you can suppress popular vote, you can also suppress the electors.


It is far more likely that electors can do what they need to do. They can be substituted if some candidates become unavailable. However, there is no replacement for voters. Barring an emergency that completely stops a state from having elections, the decision will be made. I've never heard of a state election being delayed due to natural disasters or anything. There is no minimum required voter turnout for a conclusion to be reached, in any case.


> the founders, along with Aristotle and other Greeks

Slavers who designed and oversaw slaver states.


That does not discredit what they said or thought on this issue. This is essentially an ad hominem.


It matters when you are pointing to the 'hominem' as political thought leaders. I think it's fair as a counter to an appeal to authority.


It would only be fair as a counter to their authority if the attack is relevant. I don't think it is relevant to drag slavery into a discussion about the nature of democracy and mob rule, or that the existence of widespread slavery on every continent at the time detracts from their insight. It is a purely tangentual argument to be had. For all your moralizing, I know for a fact that a vast majority of the whiners today would not have had the courage to fight slavery when it was happening literally everywhere. The ancient Greeks and the founders of the US have in common the fact that they laid the groundwork for the slavery-free condition we enjoy today, whether you like that or not. They were the geniuses of their time, and outstanding among all geniuses of all time.


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.


>There is not one journalist who knows anything.

This seems like a brazenly false statement. Also genuinely worrying, as you're discrediting all journalists based on... your feelings? Something that has been pushed for over the last 8 years by one party under the guise of labels such as "fake news" and "mainstream media".

Maybe you meant to say "everything", but parroting anti-news propaganda is only making everyone less informed and only benefits the side that isn't campaigning in good faith.


i go over the lengthy list of registered candidates then try to find the article about them.

If the article exists it doesn't really get into their program.

You can see how many facebook likes and youtube views they have.

Jill Stein has 10k views on her most popular video. The nr 1 video in google about afroman running has 1k views. He is a famous person. There are countless other candidates.

https://ballotpedia.org/List_of_registered_2024_presidential...

The traffic isn't enough to account for global journalism.

Perhaps you want to entertain the chicken and ego concept where candidates need to be famous enough before anyone should ask what they are about.

Show me the informed journalist. I would love to read everything they ever wrote.


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.


In many districts, your vote for US House and Senate seats largely doesn't matter, either. For many people, those are the only elections they are thinking about when it comes to November.

Senate seats are elected state-wide, so they largely go the same way as the presidential vote. If you're in a deep-red or deep-blue state (i.e., nearly all of them), your individual vote isn't going to make a difference.

House seats are district-specific, but:

  a) the re-election rate of incumbents is over 90%
  b) districts are often drawn to lock-in control for a specific party
State senate and house seats are often no better.

However, much to the credit of the sibling response, there are all kinds of local and regional races as well as ballot initiatives that are important.


Setting aside gerrymandering (which is a huge issue), the reelection rate doesn't tell the whole story. By what margin are House candidates typically winning? I'm sure there are plenty of landslides, but also lots of districts that were decided by a few percent -- and those who don't vote could be a deciding factor in those races if they chose to vote.

Or if we analyze this from an opportunity cost perspective, IMO voting is always the right choice. Maybe there's an 80% chance your vote "doesn't matter", but the cost is only 15 minutes of your time every 2 years. Isn't the 20% worth the risk? (OK, I am lucky enough to live in a state where voting lines are short. I understand it takes more than 15 mins for some people.)


Bottom line: Turnout reflects the odds that an individual vote will impact the outcome.

In most races, there is little doubt (more than 80% odds) as to who will win. And this extends all the way down to the local level. And voters, candidates and political parties all know this.


Probably they couldn't explain it, but many of them will have taken to heart the idea that "my vote doesn't matter". Which is especially sad, since like you say there are potentially all kinds of local and regional races and ballot measures their vote could in fact have impacted.


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.


Unless you happen to live in a swing area, the results for most other races conform to well known and even pre-determined trends.

There are very few such areas. Voters, candidates and the political parties know this.


Couldn’t they pay out after the election to anyone who leans left and voted or anyone who leans right and didn’t vote? Just an idea I guess.


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.


[flagged]


Think you might be projecting just a little?


[flagged]


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.


Dark satire is perhaps more appropriate in a party game than at a supposedly-serious political conference.


Which is why we have popular subreddits such as /r/TheRightCantMeme


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.


Thanks. Not sure why some people were so triggered by the question. Never heard of this game before. If we can't ask questions about what we don't know, and if you're not willing to share what you know, what kind of place is this?


[flagged]


You might want to go look it up before making a bunch of assumptions based only on the name. Sure, you might feel a bit silly after, but hopefully you can have a good laugh over it.


You are reading way too much into the tongue-in-cheek name of a satirical card game.


Gosh, you have gone pretty far down into the kool-aid.

Cards Against Humanity is a card game, it was a Kickstarter in 2011. The name is a joke with "crimes against humanity", it's a politically incorrect game where you complete sentences from a card with the sentences/words you have in the cards on your hand.

You've created a whole 5 paragraphs strawman out of the name of a game...

Please, reconsider the stuff you read, you're deeply chronically online. And I don't mean this to put you down, it's just that the vicious way you went into a tirade against a creation of your own mind is concerning.


Or you know, you can google it and find it's a play on word with "crimes against humanity" because a lot of the combination result on really dark or politically incorrect humor.


I think you're reading way too much into a satirical card game dude...




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