Elon Musk dispatched an "emergency squad" to Pennsylvania to secure last-minute votes on Election Day.

The billionaire tech mogul's America PAC is targeting would-be Trump voters who filed their initial ballots with errors, meaning they would be rejected in the final count.

It is a highly expensive and unusual tactic, but could yield the small number of votes needed to win the key battleground state.

Sources cited by The New York Times said the work had been out-sourced to Blitz Canvassing, the political advisory firm.

The group's canvassers have identified voters who made mistakes on their original ballots in order to give them a chance to fix things, in a process known as "ballot curing".

In Pennsylvania, the electorate have until 8pm on election day to correct their mistakes. Some other states have a longer window.

The task involves operatives sifting through lists of disqualified votes obtained from county election offices.

The number of fixable ballots is usually relatively small compared with the amount of work it requires to discover them.

But the last-ditch attempt highlights how close Trump's campaign believes the fight for Pennsylvania is on the final day of voting.

Keys to the White House

The Keystone state is arguably the most important for either candidate in obtaining the necessary 270 electoral college votes needed to secure the keys to the White House.

Trump has left the Musk-founded America PAC to carry out most of the ground campaign in Pennsylvania.

The billionaire's campaign group has knocked on millions of doors in the state, and has handed out daily prizes of $1 million to registered voters who have signed a petition supporting the Constitution.

Blitz Canvassing has not been involved in the campaign efforts up to this point.

It has been mostly aimed at trying to increase the voter turnout with people sympathetic to Trump's policies.

The America Pac has also carried out ballot curing operations in Michigan, another important swing state.

The Telegraph has approached both America Pac and Blitz Canvassing for comment.