North Austin News

The Center for Tech and Civil Life (CTCL), a nonprofit that received financial support from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, granted Williamson County $263,644 to fund voting expansions during the 2020 election, but more money went to Democrat-leaning counties, critics say.

Of the $36.4 million in grants awarded by CTCL, approximately $15.1 million went to Dallas County, with another $9.6 million to Harris County. Critics have raised concerns that the outside funding may have swayed elections by favoring Democrat-leaning counties. 

A white paper from the Public Interest Legal Foundation claims that even in the traditionally Republican stronghold of Tarrant County, which received $1.6 million, the reason the county flipped may have been related to allocation of those funds.

“The Tarrant County Election Administrator’s budget for the 2020 Election was originally $8,089,517,” the white paper states. “CTCL juiced that budget by almost 21%. Biden also flipped Austin metro area Hays and Williamson counties with raw vote improvements between 70 and 80%.”

Studies by the Capital Research Center (CRC) looking at the influence of the $350 million distributed by CTCL discovered that in Arizona, Nevada and Pennsylvania, funding went overwhelmingly to boost elections in predominantly Democrat-controlled counties, according to coverage by Legal Newsline. In Philadelphia, the grant specifically required that the funds be used to pay for mail-in ballots and increased numbers of drop boxes around the city.

“This matters because drop boxes sidestep basic voting integrity requirements, allowing anyone – without any identification – to drop any number of ballots into a private collection bin with no official oversight and no accountability after the fact,” Hayden Ludwig, senior investigative researcher at CRC, was quoted as saying by Legal Newsline. “If a fraudster wanted to flood Philadelphia with phony ballots, CTCL’s Zuckbucks enabled him to bypass USPS mailboxes."

In response, the Texas Legislature has introduced legislation to limit outside funds from going directly to local elections. House Bill 2283, sponsored by state Rep. Phil King (R-Weatherford). If signed into law, the bill will prohibit any election commissions or county election boards from accepting any contributions offered by private parties, including corporations, trusts or private individuals.

“Private parties cannot be allowed to pay for preferred modes of elections in Texas or anywhere else,” J. Christian Adams, president of the Public Interest Legal Foundation, said in their white paper. “Election administration is the most fundamental function of local and state government and must be funded accordingly, full stop.”

While HB 2283 is before the state House of Representatives, Senate Bill 7 – which includes similar measures – has passed the state Senate.

However, on the federal level, legislation is proceeding to expand election access, according to Prairie State Wire. The For the People Act, which would loosen restrictions on voter ID requirements and mail-in ballots for all federal elections, has passed the U.S. House of Representatives and is now before the U.S. Senate.