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A representative for Mark Zuckerberg confirmed the Facebook CEO will not make another multi-million dollar donation to aid this year’s elections, which comes after fierce pushback that Zuckerberg’s 2020 contributions tilted the outcome of the presidential race toward President Biden.
“As Mark and Priscilla made clear previously, their election infrastructure donation to help ensure that Americans could vote during the height of the pandemic was a one-time donation given the unprecedented nature of the crisis,” Ben LaBolt, a spokesperson for Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan, said. “They have no plans to repeat that donation.”
Zuckerberg and Chan donated at least $350 million to the nonprofit Center for Technology and Civic Life ahead of the 2020 election, which was distributed to local election offices. The nonprofit said that this year, it will instead launch a different program dubbed the U.S. Alliance for Election Excellence.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg speaks at a conference in San Francisco on April 12, 2016.
(Reuters)
The program is an $80-million, five-year effort intended to create a network for the nation’s thousands of local election officials, who can apply for aid to improve their technology and processes, the Associated Press reported.
“Unfortunately, years of underinvestment means many local election departments often have limited capacity and training. The U.S. Alliance for Election Excellence is bringing together world-class partners so that local election officials no longer have to go it alone,” said Tiana Epps-Johnson, CTCL’s executive director.
Conservatives have slammed Zuckerberg and Chan’s donation ahead of 2020 as helping sway the presidential election in President Biden’s favor.
FILE – Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan arrive at the 7th annual Breakthrough Prize Ceremony at the NASA Ames Research Center on Sunday, Nov. 4, 2018, in Mountain View, Calif. The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, or CZI, which runs the philanthropy of the couple, announced Tuesday, Dec. 7, 2021, that it is investing up to $3.4 billion to advance human health over 10 to 15 years, according to a spokesperson for the organization. (Photo by Peter Barreras/Invision/AP, File)
(AP)
“This is crazy that it was allowed to happen,” editor-in-chief of The Federalist Mollie Hemingway told Fox News’ Tucker Carlson in October, noting the donations were more than $400 million. “So he [Zuckerberg] spends about as much money as the federal government does in running our 2020 elections. He gives $419 million to two left-wing groups who then funnel the money primarily to Democrat counties in swing states.”
It enabled “this army of left-wing people to come in and handle everything … they target[ed] registration to Democrat communities, they translate[d] ballots, they design[ed] ballots,” she said.
In reaction to Zuckerberg’s donations, at least eight GOP-controlled states have passed laws banning private donations to election offices, including in Florida.
FILE PHOTO: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks during the welcome segment of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Orlando, Florida, U.S. February 26, 2021. REUTERS/Joe Skipper/File Photo
(Reuters)
“We banned Zuckerbucks,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said in October of 2021.
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“Now they did put some money into Florida, not as much as they did in like Texas or Pennsylvania or some of that, but that is now banned. Elections should be administered by these offices, not by private tech moguls coming in and basically commandeering the machinery of the elections. So I think that we’ve taken a lot of action. We had a good election,” he said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
