DENVER -- When Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg donated US$400 million to help fund election offices as they scrambled to deal with the coronavirus pandemic late last summer, he said he hoped he would
never have to do it again.At least eight GOP-controlled states have passed bans on donations to election offices this year as Republicans try to block outside funding of voting operations. The legislation often comes as part of Republican packages that also put new limits on how voters can cast ballots and impose new requirements on county or city-based election officials.
"People saw that, and looked around, and they were increasingly concerned about why would you have a billionaire funding our elections through the backdoor," said Jessica Anderson, executive director of the conservative group Heritage Action, which has pushed the bans in several states. Also, Republican-leaning areas were already discouraged from accepting election grants due to conservative suspicion of Zuckerberg. The Republican attorney general of Louisiana last year ordered his state's election offices to turn down grants from the nonprofit, the Center for Tech and Civic Life, which distributed $350 million of the Zuckerberg money.
In northern Arizona, sprawling Coconino County used its US$614,000 grant to hire more election workers, particularly Navajo speakers who could do outreach on a reservation, and set up drive-up sites for voters to drop off ballots, said county recorder Patty Hansen. Election officials have long complained they were underfunded, but never more so than last year when they had to instantly revamp their entire operations at the peak of the pandemic. There was a huge shift to mail voting, while even in-person voting required new protective measures, and hazard pay for poll workers.
Other Republican election officials have also vouched for the impartiality of the program. "I don't see why governments should be barred from trying to work with the private sector in securing grant funds," said Brian Mead, a Republican election director in Licking County, Ohio, outside Columbus, which received US$77,000 from CTCL. "If we can work with the private sector and secure funds where we save our taxpayers money, I think that's a good thing," Mead said.
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