It's illegal to directly buy votes. But suppose you created a scheme where you pick polling places in areas likely to vote for you and say that everyone who votes there gets $50 when they walk out regardless of who they voted for. Would that be legal? Would it be effective?

Intriguing thought experiment! Without knowing the exact law around this, I’m guessing that it would be illegal to make the $50 contingent on voting, but you could probably get away with a scheme that offers people cash for arriving at a polling place, regardless of whether they vote or not. You’d have a lot of waste from people taking the cash without voting, but if even a small portion of those you gave cash to voted despite having little prior intention of doing so, you might be able to throw some smaller elections like that. I’m sure people would still try to find some way to sue you for it though