If a voter reads the campaign websites of candidates like Tudor Dixon, who is running for governor of Michigan, or Tim Michels, vying for the same position in Wisconsin, he will likely come across their stated position to ban “Zuckerbucks.”
The term has become a catch-all to describe private entities donating millions of dollars to fund the official government vote-counts in the 2020 elections. Chief among them was Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, whose non-profit, the Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL), gave $350 million to 2,500 election departments across 47 states.
Election officials mainly used the money to buy masks, plexiglass dividers, and other resources to mitigate risks related to the Covid-19 pandemic during the 2020 election.
Allowing private individuals and companies to fund official election practices may open the door to corruption because many of the CTCL operatives and advisers were highly ideological, some Republicans have argued.
Among them is Alabama governor Kay Ivey, whose state was the first to ban Zuckerbucks. “Big tech’s efforts to undermine the integrity of our elections has no place in our country, and I’m proud to have signed legislation that ensures Alabama’s election process remains air-tight,” she said in an April 13 press release.
Two weeks later, Florida governor Ron Desantis followed Ivey’s lead and signed a similar bill. “They effectively commandeered the machinery of the actual elections. That is wrong, that is not inspiring confidence in terms of having elections with integrity,” he said at a press conference on April 29.
A similar bill in Georgia passed the state’s house on March 15 and is awaiting a vote in the state senate.
Some have touted the trend of local election offices taking money from Zuckerberg as evidence of former president Donald Trump’s claim that the 2020 election was stolen. While there were some suspicious practices by advisers from the CTCL, there is little proof of this assertion.
The largest grant, according to the center’s report, went to New York City, totaling just over $19 million. Spending exorbitant amounts of money to flip a locale that was already very Democratic would have been a serious waste, as the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board argues.
Additionally, the center gave relatively sizable grants to deep-red countries, such as DeSoto County in Mississippi, which received almost $348,000. A spokesman for the county called the money “a huge help,” according to the WSJ editors.
Still, there is reason to be concerned about the money. In Green Bay, Wis., one of the advisors dispatched by the center, Michael Spitzer-Rubenstein, offered help to local clerks with curing ballots and allegedly allowed unqualified people to conduct the election process, according to local clerk Kris Teske.
Another advisor the CTCL offered to Green Bay offices, according to the Journal’s editors, was from the Brennan Center for Justice, a left-wing think tank that supports the elimination of the Electoral College.
Republican outcry over Zuckerberg’s donations may have dissuaded him from doing the same thing in 2022. He will not be giving money to election offices this fall, he announced in early April.
Instead, the CTCL will create U.S. Alliance for Election Excellence, which will unite “bipartisan election officials to rally around a set of common values and standards, support each other, and keep their skills fresh,” according to a press release.
Democratic governors have refused to move against Zuckerbucks, and the issue may become a serious factor in the 2022 elections in Michigan, Wisconsin, and other purple states.