Cards Against Humanity campaigns to encourage voting, expose personal data abuse
The troublemakers behind the party game Cards Against Humanity have launched a campaign demonstrating how easy it is to buy sensitive personal data about American voters, while simultaneously encouraging those Americans to plan how to cast a vote in the upcoming presidential election.
The "Cards Against Humanity Pays You to Give a
Poo"
campaign uses US citizens' personal data obtained from a broker to identify whether individuals voted in the 2020 US presidential election and how they lean politically. Those who didn't vote are asked to put info into the website, promise to vote in the upcoming election, make a voting plan, "and publicly post 'Donald Trump is a human toilet'" in exchange for up to $100.
The amount paid out will vary, depending on a voter's home state and political leanings. Democrat-leaning voters in the so-called swing states that will likely decide the presidential election under the US Electoral College system are eligible for the $100. People in other states – and, presumably, Republicans – get less.
Of course, the whole thing needs money to work, so CAH, through its
recently registered CAH Super political action committee (PAC), is also offering a $7.99 expansion pack for its signature game, themed around the 2024 election, with all proceeds going to pay lazy voters to leave the house on November 5. The party game provider also put up $100,000 of its own to fund the effort.
"Cards Against Humanity is exploiting a legal loophole," the org explains. "This whole thing should probably be illegal – so quick, give us your money before they change the law!"
Paying someone to vote is illegal in the US under
multiple laws.
But a PAC paying someone to do voting-adjacent things is not illegal. Indeed, America PAC – Elon Musk's political vehicle, this week
launched a campaign that offers $47 to people who refer voters to sign a petition.
The New York Times
article about that campaign quotes campaign finance lawyer Brendan Fischer as saying it is legal. On X, Fischer
wrote: "America PAC is ultimately spending money for voter data, which PACs and campaigns do all the time … but typically political groups pay just a few pennies per name, not $47 each."
Put your phone number into the site, along with a few personal details, and it spits back party registration, whether or not you voted, and your political lean, among other data points.
To quote CAH, "It's pretty £$%&ed up."
"We formed a Super PAC and bought the personal voting records of every American citizen from a data broker we found on the internet," the game publisher wrote. "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."
Data pulled on a voter from the CAH website
