A vote-generating group funded in part by Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg dumped money in eight swing states in 2020, virtually all to counties that picked President Joe Biden over former President Donald Trump in last year’s election, according to a congressional critic.
New York Rep. Claudia Tenney, co-chairwoman of the House Election Integrity Caucus, today released new details of her inquiry into spending by the Zuckerberg-backed Center for Tech and Civic Life showing spending of $144 million — $130 million to Democratic counties and $14 million to GOP counties.
The group’s efforts to boost voting have drawn attention, mainly in Wisconsin, but Tenney found so-called “Zuckerbucks” also in Texas, New York, Georgia, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Florida, Ohio, and Nevada.
Republicans documenting changes to the 2020 election process that favored Democrats have raised concerns that the funds were geared toward electing Biden. In her review of financial documents from the group, Tenney said that most of the money went to Biden-leaning Democratic counties.
“After reviewing their IRS Form 990, which I requested months ago, we know the group gave overwhelmingly to Democrat-leaning counties to drive up voter turnout there. This provided Democrats with a clear advantage over Republicans, and now we have the evidence to show the extent of this partisan exercise,” the New York Republican said in a statement.
She recently introduced the End Zuckerbucks Act, which would prevent some tax-exempt organizations such as CTCL from providing direct funding to election agencies in the future.
The group aimed to help “get out the vote” efforts with high tech. Zuckerberg provided hundreds of millions to it. Since the election, Republicans in some states believe it was spent only to increase Democratic votes.
“CTCL’s one-sided distribution of private dollars directly to election agencies without any accountability completely bypassed state and local governments and undermined the fairness and integrity of our elections. It should not have happened, which is why I introduced the End Zuckerbucks Act. Private, partisan organizations should not provide funds directly to election agencies to impact our elections,” Tenney said.
