Vote vote so hard

Elon Musk’s Political Action Committee (PAC) has dispatched an “emergency team” to issue last-minute fixes to Pennsylvania’s disqualified ballots.

According to two people familiar with the process who spoke to New York TimesMusk’s America PAC is running this so-called “heal the ballot” campaign as the race tightens in the state that could easily decide who becomes the next president.

In 33 statesgroups may choose to run their own ballots at their own expense to secure more votes for their candidates. The process is exhausting, engaging operators sifting absentee ballots — many rejected for minor errors such as forgetting to sign or getting two witnesses – and contacting as many of the affected people as possible to try to get more votes that would otherwise be thrown away.

With massive increase in postal voting during and after the 2020 election, this labor-intensive process had acquired a new importance.

In New York, for example, more than 8,000 postal ballots were saved on the ballot in 2021 municipal races. Given that Pennsylvania likely determines the fate of the nation, a margin of that size could be enough to swing it in Trump’s favor if Musk’s vote curators can get enough bailout votes by the state’s 8 p.m. deadline on Election Day.

Known unknowns

America PAC hired Blitz Canvassing — a chaotic subcontractor that didn’t work in any of the Trump campaign’s Pennsylvania field games — to do his vote healing in the Keystone State. The report adds that the PAC also employs vote curators in Michigan who has a longer window after the election to repair rejected mail-in ballots.

Although NYTHis unnamed internal sources were tight-lipped about US PAC’s concerns for Pennsylvania, the vote-healing effort there giving the effect of anxiety about the outcome of what is expected to be an extremely close election.

While much is unclear about America PAC’s Get the Ballot Campaign, including whether or how many operatives are being paid and how many have been deployed, there is much more light on the process for Democratic volunteers, who have set up the entire online healing networks dedicated to donating their time on and after Election Day to similar causes.

“I did several ballots this morning,” tweeted a progressive volunteer with Party of Working Families on the eve of E-Day. “Once again, the Zoom call maxed out the participants and we finished our list in less than an hour.”

For some volunteers, the painstaking process of healing the ballot is clearly a labor of love — but when it comes to those on Musk’s side, money is the most likely reason.

More on Musk’s PA political maneuvering: Elon Musk’s lawyers say his $1 million winners aren’t chosen at random after all