Last week, the Chicago-based Center for Tech and Civic Life finally filed its 2020 federal tax return and the list of grant recipients is shocking.
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg donated approximately $350 million to the formerly unknown liberal organization CTCL. The group then gave “grants” to local election offices, along with explicit instructions regarding how election procedures were to be changed. This greatly benefitted Democrat candidates.
Although hundreds of jurisdictions received tiny gifts of a few thousand dollars, which probably made no difference in their actions, a surprisingly large number of jurisdictions received multi-million dollar grants of these so-called “ZuckBucks.”
Having spent many hours reviewing CTCL’s tax information and speaking with researchers at the Capital Research Center and the Rodney Election Research Institute, I am now more convinced than ever that this unprecedented type of “election spending” by CTCL and Zuckerberg is a serious violation of the spirit of free and fair elections. I am unable to recall any comparable effort ever having been undertaken in the entire history of U.S. elections.
An integral part of any such system is that neither side gets to run the administration of the election. Neither candidate gets to design the rules. Election offices are supposed to be guided by the principle of neutrality, and both teams get to look over election officials’ shoulders to assure that neutrality.
The funding of election administration should be roughly equal on a per-capita basis, should be equally distributed to all election offices in a state, and must come from taxpayers. Neutrality in election administration, funding, and staffing must be paramount.
Election offices must never be subject to outside influences that might favor a particular candidate. Wealthy and powerful people should not be allowed to use their money to influence the manner of administering elections. There is too much potential for such financial influence to result in elections favoring the party of the wealthy and the powerful.
