Of the $36.4 million spent in Texas by the Mark Zuckerberg-backed nonprofit Center for Tech and Civil Life, approximately $25 million alone went to Dallas and Harris counties. | wallpaperflare.com
Of the $36.4 million spent in Texas by the Mark Zuckerberg-backed nonprofit Center for Tech and Civil Life, approximately $25 million alone went to Dallas and Harris counties. | wallpaperflare.com
Brooks County received $92,225 from the Center for Tech and Civil Life (CTCL), a portion of the approximately $36.4 million in grants the Mark Zuckerberg-backed nonprofit contributed to Texas counties to fund election efforts such as mail-in ballots and drive-thru voting.
A critique of the grants awarded by CTCL – approximately $15.1 million went to Dallas County, with another $9.6 million to Harris County – claims that the outside funding may have swayed elections by favoring Democrat-leaning counties. Additionally, a white paper from the Public Interest Legal Foundation states that in the traditionally Republican stronghold of Tarrant County, which received $1.6 million, the county may have flipped, in part, to the allocation of those funds.
“The Tarrant County Election Administrator’s budget for the 2020 Election was originally $8,089,517,” the white paper states. “CTCL juiced that budget by almost 21%. Biden also flipped Austin metro area Hays and Williamson Counties with raw vote improvements between 70 and 80%.”
The Texas Legislature response comes in the form of House Bill 2283, introduced by state Rep. Phil King (R-Weatherford). It would prohibit any election commissions or county election boards from accepting contributions offered by private parties, including corporations, trusts or private individuals.
“Private parties cannot be allowed to pay for preferred modes of elections in Texas or anywhere else,” J. Christian Adams, president of the Public Interest Legal Foundation, said in the PILF white paper. “Election administration is the most fundamental function of local and state government and must be funded accordingly, full stop.”
Studies by the Capital Research Center (CRC) investigating the influence of the $350 million Zuckerberg distributed through CTCL discovered that in Arizona, Nevada and Pennsylvania found the money went overwhelmingly to boost elections in predominantly Democrat-controlled counties, according to coverage by Legal Newsline. In Philadelphia, the grant specifically required that the funds be used to pay for mail-in ballots and increased numbers of drop boxes around the city.
“This matters because drop boxes sidestep basic voting integrity requirements, allowing anyone – without any identification – to drop any number of ballots into a private collection bin with no official oversight and no accountability after the fact,” Hayden Ludwig, senior investigative researcher at CRC, told Legal Newsline. “If a fraudster wanted to flood Philadelphia with phony ballots, CTCL’s Zuck bucks enabled him to bypass USPS mailboxes."
While HB 2283 is before the state House of Representatives, Senate Bill 7 – which includes similar measures – has already passed the state Senate.
Yet, on the federal level, legislation pushing the other direction is in process, according to coverage by Prairie State Wire. The For the People Act, which would loosen restrictions on voter ID requirements and mail-in ballots for all federal elections, has passed the U.S. House of Representatives and is now before the U.S. Senate.
Illinois-based Restoration Action is opposed to the measure. Founder Doug Truax said in a release that the bill "strips away critical safeguards necessary to ensure our elections are free, fair, and transparent.”
No widespread election fraud was discovered in the 2020 election despite the largest voter turnout in American history.
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