Back in my 2000 California Law Review article, Vote Buying, I wrote about how some jurisdictions, such as California permitted payments for people to register or to vote (so long as those payments were not made to induce people to vote for or against a particular candidate or ballot measure). Such payments were only allowed when there were no federal candidates on the ballot, because payments for turnout violate federal law.

Now, in the wake of Elon Musk’s controversial (and I’ve argued, illegal) lotteries to get people to vote in the 2024 elections, California has passed a new law, to be codified in Elections Code section 18107.5 that bans the practice of payments for turnout. The new law reads in part:

(a)(1)A person who knowingly or willfully pays or offers to pay money or other valuable consideration to another person with the intent to induce the person to vote or to register to vote, or where the payment is contingent upon whether the person voted or the persons voter registration status, is guilty of a crime.

(2)For purposes of paragraph (1), other valuable consideration includes, but is not limited to, a chance to win a lottery or similar prize-drawing contest.

(3)This section does not apply to any of the following:

(A)Transportation to or from a voting location.

(B)Compensation provided to an individual by a governmental entity.

(C)Granting time off to an employee to vote.

(b)A violation of subdivision (a) shall be punishable by a fine of up to ten thousand dollars ($10,000), by imprisonment pursuant to subdivision (h) of Section 1170 of the Penal Code for 16 months or two or three years, or in a county jail not exceeding one year, or by both that fine and imprisonment.

For some reason, the law did not amend or repeal the old California law that implicitly allowed payments for turnout.

Here’s my analysis from the California Law Review on the experience with such payments for turnout: