Sam Yoon Gave Away Red Sox Tickets. Is That Legal?

Yesterday, Bostonist received a notice from Sam Yoon's campaign urging us to enter a sweepstakes that that the mayoral candidate was holding. The prize? A pair of box seats to tonight's Red Sox-Yankees game. The details were simple. Text "Red Sox" to the Yoon campaign's special phone number, which subscribes you to Yoon's text alert service, and wait to see if you ended up with the tickets. It's pretty sweet deal, if you were the winner, but doesn't it sound sort of fishy? Can the Yoon campaign legally pay people to become supporters?

Yes. According to Jason Tait, spokesman for the Massachusetts Office of Campaign and Political Finance, "it's perfectly legal to give out prizes in order to publicize a campaign or build a mailing list." In fact, it's not even uncommon. According to Tait, when gas prices topped $4 last year, candidates were offering gasoline gift cards to people who signed up for mailing lists. Nothing in Massachusetts campaign regulations forbid a candidate from offering an incentive to voters in order to get them involved in a campaign. Candidates can even offer cash prizes.

So, can things get tricky for the Yoon campaign? Possibly. The prize tickets were donated to Yoon's campaign committee, and the committee must report the donation as an in-kind contribution. And Yoon can't actually pay people to vote for him—that would be a violation of Chapter 56, Section 32 of the Massachusetts General Laws, which prohibits candidates from bribing voters.