Read on Twitter
Remember how long it took for Pennsylvania, Michigan and Georgia to count the ballots after the November election?
Well, it could have been much worse if a massive amount of private money fueled by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg didn’t happen. That’s what election officials like Bill Turner, w/ @chescogovt told us.
The Covid-19 pandemic drained election office budgets. Safety supplies were needed for election workers and voters. An avalanche of mailed ballots, increased postage and materials
Election Administrators, their staff and volunteers are the unsung heroes of the election. As @geoffhing pointed out, they had to think critically about managing an election during a pandemic. https://twitter.com/geoffhing/status/1335969580846641163
But they also needed money. And that’s where @HelloCTCL came in. The Chicago nonprofit gave @chescogovt a $2.5 million grant to fund everything from pay hikes for workers to body cameras to monitor ballot collection.
The county also bought high-speed printers & envelope sorters. It took them 36 hours to count 150,000 ballots. W/out the equipment & manpower, it would have been a week or more, Turner said. "Honestly, I don’t know what we would have done without [the grant]," he said.
@chescogovt is one of more than 2,500 communities to receive a grant. Here’s a map of the jurisdictions that received a grant, according to @HelloCTCL This interactive map from APM Reports shows all grants and known funding. Click on a city or county to see what they got
@HelloCTCL says the grants were aimed at helping ensure elections were safe and secure during the pandemic. The group declined interview requests, so we don’t know where the money was spent or how much.
But CTCL's CEO @tianaej said recently that the grant money rivaled the $400 million distributed through the CARES Act in March. “In about eight weeks, we granted funds to over 2,500 election departments across the county in 49 states,” she said.
Since @HelloCTCL wasn’t talking and the money came from a tech titan, our team wanted to know how the money was being spent. So @geoffhing, @sabby_robinson, @gracie_stockton and I started requesting the grant agreements. https://www.apmreports.org/story/2020/12/07/private-grant-money-chan-zuckerburg-election
We asked for grant agreements and interviewed election directors. They told us they needed help because Congress failed to deliver a second payment.
“Congress really failed our election officials,” said @LizlHoward with the @BrennanCenter.
“Congress really failed our election officials,” said @LizlHoward with the @BrennanCenter.
While some of the money went to essentials (increase in worker pay and PPE), some bought equipment to process the massive increase in mailed ballots.
@Bulloch_County Georgia used part of its $60,000 grant to buy extension cords to space out voting machines. Philadelphia, PA spent $14,000 on ink alone.
Howard, with the Brennan Center, said the grants also allowed communities to fund their “dream election.” It allowed them to do things they wouldn’t normally do. For example, Coconino, AZ used its money to set up early voting on the Navajo Indian Reservation for the first time.
Some places received grant awards that were more than their entire 2020 election budgets. In Kenosha, Wisconsin, grant money was more than 4 times the city’s ‘20 election budget.
In Minneapolis, the city spent $300k to rent 70,000 square feet at the Minneapolis Convention Center. They needed it to safely social distance while processing mailed ballots. https://www.mprnews.org/story/2020/12/07/private-money-helped-pay-to-conduct-minnesotas-election
Dallas County, Texas, spent $250,000 on food for election workers. They also requested $10 million to buy a building.
Conservative groups and those that work to restrict access to voting continue to criticize the private grants. They say the money helped turnout voters for Joe Biden. Those groups are making Zuck’s bucks and CTCL part of the larger boogeymen of the election.
But we analyzed voter data in PA, GA and AZ. Registration increased at similar rates regardless of whether counties got grants. The number of voters for Joe Biden increased at a greater rate than the rate for Republican voters, regardless of whether a county received a grant.
Still, there are worries private money will set a precedent. Some worry the money could be considered tainted even if there are no strings attached. "I don’t think elections should be public/private partnerships," said Rachael Cobb, a political science professor at @Suffolk_U.
The problem is that people will begin to wonder if strings are attached. It’s happening now in the criticism of Zuckerberg and CTCL. Is Zuckerberg doing this for the public good or is he trying to whitewashing criticism over how Facebook handles misinformation?
For his part, Zuckerberg said there is nothing political about the donations.
“Voting is the foundation of democracy," he wrote in a FB post. It's how we express our voice and make sure our country is heading in the direction we want..."
https://www.facebook.com/zuck/posts/10112459455098901
“Voting is the foundation of democracy," he wrote in a FB post. It's how we express our voice and make sure our country is heading in the direction we want..."
https://www.facebook.com/zuck/posts/10112459455098901
We only collected a small portion of the grant agreements. But we want to read as many as we can. Ask your local government for a copy of their agreement and please send us a copy. Thanks for reading.
You can read our full story here: https://www.apmreports.org/story/2020/12/07/private-grant-money-chan-zuckerburg-election
You can read our full story here: https://www.apmreports.org/story/2020/12/07/private-grant-money-chan-zuckerburg-election
