Money From Facebook’s Zuckerberg Used to Undermine Election, Violate Law: Report By Zachary Stieber December 16, 2020 Updated: December 16, 2020
Hundreds of millions of dollars from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg was used to violate election laws, according to a new report.
The Amistad Project of the Thomas More Society, a national constitutional litigation organization, released the 39-page report, alleging that Zuckerberg’s $500 million given to election officials was used to treat voters unequally and improperly influence the election for Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.
The bulk of the funds went to the Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL), a nonprofit started by former managers and staff at the New Organizing Institute, a progressive nonprofit.
According to the report, the nonprofit earlier this year “began sending agents into states to recruit certain Democrat strongholds to prepare grants requesting monies from” it.
For example, the center gave $100,000 to Cory Mason, the mayor of Racine, Wisconsin, to recruit four other cities to develop a plan and request a larger grant from it. Those five cities submitted such a plan in June and received $6.3 million to implement it.
That kind of privatization of elections “undermines the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), which requires state election plans to be submitted to federal officials and approved and requires respect for equal protection by making all resources available equally to all voters,” the report states.
“The provision of Zuckerberg-CTCL funds allowed these Democrat strongholds to spend roughly $47 per voter, compared to $4 to $7 per voter in traditionally Republican areas of the state. Moreover, this recruiting of targeted jurisdictions for specific government action and funding runs contrary to legislative election plans and invites government to play favorites in the election process.”
Mason’s spokesperson didn’t respond to a request for comment, nor did a Facebook spokesperson nor CTCL’s media office.
“This effectively is a shadow government running our elections,” Phill Kline, director of the Amistad Project, said at a press conference in Virginia.
“Government has the core responsibility of managing elections. We don’t put out elections for bid. We don’t have elections brought to you by Coca Cola. It is government’s job to manage elections, and it must do so without a thumb on the scale,” he added.
The project said the main foundations funding the efforts include The Democracy Fund, New Venture Fund, Skoll Foundation, and Knight Foundation
Other nonprofits deemed key to distributing the money besides CTCL were named as the Center for Electronic Innovation Research, the Center for Civic Design, the National Vote at Home Institute, the Center for Secure and Modern Elections, and Rock the Vote.
None immediately responded to requests for comment.
Think of it as an investment that will pay off handsomely:
ZitatA recent report outlines the number of Big Tech executives that are expected to join Joe Biden’s transition team in the coming weeks. The team includes insiders from the entire range of Silicon Valley Masters of the Universe.
A report published by Protocol has revealed that a huge number of Big Tech executives are expected to join Joe Biden’s presidential transition team, with Protocol stating there’s “definitive Silicon Valley representation and thought leaders on tech issues involved in shaping the future of the federal government. ”
Notable tech execs joining the transition team include:
Tom Sullivan, Amazon’s director of international tax planning (State Department) Brandon Belford, Lyft’s senior director to the chief of staff (Office of Management and Budget) Divya Kumaraiah, Airbnb’s strategy and program lead for cities (Office of Management and Budget) Will Fields, Sidewalk Labs’ senior development associate (Treasury Department) Nicole Wong, former Google and Twitter, former Obama Deputy Chief Technology Officer (Office of Science and Technology Policy) Martha Gimbel, senior manager of economic research at Schmidt Futures (Council of Economic Advisers) Linda Etim, senior adviser at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (team lead for International Development) Breitbart News recently reported that Joe Biden was considering the Clinton-linked former Google CEO Eric Schmidt for a role in his administration. Breitbart Tech senior reporter Allum Bokhari wrote:
Even though the election result is still disputed by President Donald Trump and the Republicans, Joe Biden is already forming his transition team, which includes many former Silicon Valley employees, including Schmidt.
According to the Financial Times (paywalled), presidential contender Biden has: hired both Jessica Hertz, former associate general counsel at Facebook, and Cynthia Hogan, former Apple vice-president for government affairs to his transition team. Eric Schmidt, the former Google chief executive, has been a big fundraiser, and is being talked about to lead a new technology industry task force in the White House.
Multiple Big Tech executives joined the Biden transition team just weeks before Silicon Valley censored the New York Post‘s bombshell articles on alleged Biden family corruption.
Schmidt is known for his close ties to the Democrats, as well as his deep involvement with their election campaigns. These have paid off in terms of government roles at both the state and national level.