Politics
Battle Heats Up Over Private $$ to Fund Public Elections
Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and his wife donated $350 million to help get out the vote in 2020.
D BY STEVE MILLER
emocrats are pushing to continue allowing private money to fund public elec- tions as Republicans try
to limit the practice, which they say gave Joe Biden an unfair and perhaps decisive advantage in his victory over Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential contest. So far, at least 10 Republican-con-
trolled states have passed laws to pro- hibit or limit the use of private money in public elections. These include swing states Arizona,
Florida, Georgia, and Ohio. In another swing state, North Caro-
lina, Democrat Gov. Roy Cooper vetoed such legislation, as did other Democrat governors. During 2020, nonprofits donated
more than $400 million to state and local election boards to support their work and get out the vote. Most of the funding, around $350
million, came from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, distributed primarily through the Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL), a Chicago-based, progressive- led group that includes former opera- tives of President Barack Obama. Democrats and others contend that
such money — an amount approaching the $479.5 million in federal and state matching funds provided for COVID- 19-related election expenses in 2020 — is necessary to support the work of underfunded election boards facing the added challenges of the pandemic. In vetoing the North Carolina leg-
BIAS? New York GOP Rep. Claudia Tenney tweeted out a chart comparing CTCL funding between Democrats and Republicans.
Congresswoman Tenney @RepTenney
This side-by-side comparison shows the dramatic difference in how CTCL funneled Mark Zuckerberg's private wealth to Democratic-leaning counties to drive up turnout there, while underinvesting in counties likely to break for Trump.
islation, Cooper said the money pro- vided “necessities such as masks, single-use pens, and other protec- tive equipment so voters stayed safe during the pan- demic.” Republicans
10:51 AM • Dec 20, 2021
assert that the pri- vate grants were disproportion- ately allocated to counties eventu- ally won by Biden, a mismatch that hurt them in 2020 and, if continued, would damage their chances in future elections. “Our elections
should never 42 NEWSMAX | APRIL 2022
be for sale, but they were in 2020,” Rep. Claudia Tenney, R-N.Y., said last month, calling the private funding a “partisan exercise.” The CTCL insists the grants were
available to any entity that applied. Among other things, the money
went to get-out-the-vote efforts and tal- lying mail-in ballots. In some cases, the money allowed Democratic Party oper- atives in key states to help run the elec- tion, including the counting of votes. The center was “very lenient regard-
ing what we could spend the money on,” Deb Cox, elections supervisor for Georgia’s Lowndes County, told Real- ClearInvestigations. The county paid off a $15,000 legal
bill with some of the grant. “They put virtually no restrictions on it as long as it relates to the election,” Cox said. The Capital Research Center, a con-
servative group that describes its study of the 2020 election as “exposing how one billionaire privatized a presidential election,” estimates that in Georgia, the Zuckerberg-aligned center gave $5.06 per capita in counties that went for Biden and 98 cents in counties that went for Trump. In Pennsylvania, another swing
state, the group estimates that the cen- ter gave $3.11 per capita in counties that went for Biden, while Trump counties received 57 cents per capita. In Ari- zona, the group says, the breakdown was $5.83 for Biden counties and $1.29 for Trump counties. CTCL’s executive director, Tiana
Epps-Johnson, told the Associat- ed Press that the funding allocation “reflects those who chose to apply.” “Every eligible election department
that was verified as legitimate was approved for a grant,” the center said on its website.
Published by permission of RealClearPolitics.
JOSH EDELSON/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
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