Left-Wing Tech Group Grants Millions in Eerily Familiar Schemes for 2020 Elections

Although about half the states ban private dollars from funding local governing of elections as a response to Mark Zuckerberg’s controversial grants in 2020, a tech-aligned group will dole out individual $500,000 grants to jurisdictions for future elections. 

The U.S. Alliance for Election Excellence, established in April,  will award individual grants of $500,000 to at least two local jurisdictions out of 10 The organization has been accepted into the program. 

Greenwich, Connecticut, and Macoupin County, Illinois, each will get $500,000 under the alliance’s membership agreement, according to documents obtained by The Daily Signal through public records requests. 

The Alliance for Election Excellence is a project of Center for Tech and Civic Life (or CTCL), which distributed $350,000,000 in grants from a foundation founded by Mark Zuckerber and his spouse to local election offices. Critics claim that the money benefited mainly Democrat turnout in 2020’s election. 

For the alliance, the Center for Tech and Civic Life joined forces with several technology and election organizations. It includes the Center for Secure and Modern Elections. This project is part of the liberal New Venture Fund and is funded by the “dark money” group Arabella Advisors. Arabella is well-known for her bankrolling different Left groups. 

“They are just bulking up in the states where this funding is still legal, which thankfully is a dwindling number,” J. Christian Adams is the president of The Public Interest Legal Foundation, an election-watchdog group. He spoke to The Daily Signal via phone interview. 

The Alliance for Election Excellence sent a Dec. 1 letter to each jurisdiction’s election officials. “I am pleased to inform you that based on and in reliance upon the information and materials provided [that] the Center for Tech and Civic Life (‘CTCL’), a nonprofit organization tax-exempt under Internal Revenue Code (‘IRC’) section 501(c)(3), has decided to award a grant to support the work of Town of Greenwich (‘Grantee’).”

The letter says the amount of the alliance’s grant is $500,000, with the first $150,000 to be paid in December 2022 and another $350,000 to be paid in December 2023. The bulk of the funding would be received just prior to the 2024 presidential election. 

“CTCL’s new effort, camouflaged as the ‘Alliance for Election Excellence,’ still tries to manipulate elections by giving money to government offices. But money always comes with strings, even if CTCL calls them ‘training’ and ‘mentorship,’” Scott Walter, President of the Washington-based Capital Research Center was interviewed by The Daily Signal in an email. 

Walter mentioned that the Center for Tech and Civic Life runs by Walter. Tiana Epps JohnsonThe previous owner of the New Organizing InstituteThe Washington Post – called “the Democratic Party’s Hogwarts for digital wizardry.” 

“The more the Alliance [for Election Excellence] is investigated, the more strings to its money will be found. If Republican operatives tried this scam, the media would rightly blast off their camouflage and expose the partisanship,” Walter shared his story with The Daily Signal. 

Additional evidence that the alliance can be both left-winger and partisan is its partners Include the Center for Secure and Modern ElectionsA pop-up group within the funding empire managed by Arabella AdvisorsThe Atlantic magazine also published a. called You can find more information at “massive progressive dark-money group,” Walter added.

While Connecticut and Illinois may not be competitive in presidential elections, the other jurisdictions are in the battleground state of Wisconsin, North Carolina or Nevada. Two jurisdictions reside in California that is overwhelmingly Democrat.

The Daily Signal’s records requests with the eight other jurisdictions are pending. 

Greenwich is one of the most wealthy cities in America and has been a Republican stronghold since the blue state. However, Democrats have been victorious There were no such elections in recent years. 

For most of the past two decades, Illinois’ Macoupin County It has been a predominantly Republican-leaning county in an otherwise blue state for presidential election. The county was previously heavily Democrat in presidential elections. 

“In terms of favoring one party over another in a future election, I’d refer to item 8 of the grant agreement which specifies, among other things, that the money will not be used to attempt to influence the outcome of an election, in support or opposition of a public question, or in support or opposition of a candidate,” Pete Duncan, Macoupin County Clerk, sent an email to The Daily Signal. 

The Alliance for Election Excellence demands that local government officials sign a membership agreement. “commitment to nonpartisanship.” It reads: 

We support election officials and local governments, regardless of size or partisanship. We provide tools and resources to help them conduct inclusive, safe, secure and trustworthy elections. We are committed to nonpartisanship. We will not attempt to influence any election’s outcome. Period.

The Center for Tech and Civic Life has previously claimed that its funding for 2020 elections went to both Democratic and Republican jurisdictions. 

A lesson learned from the Zuckerberg grants in 2020, the Public Interest Legal Foundation’s Adams said, is that officials in Republican-leaning counties used the funds for activities such as buying printers, while officials in Democrat-leaning counties used the money for activities such as collecting ballots. 

“They [the CTCL] are very, very good at having an extremely factual case that their funding doesn’t help either side and is a neutral flood of money,” Adams spoke to The Daily Signal. 

The alliance directs all press inquiries to Center for Tech and Civic Life. The Center has not yet responded to queries from The Daily Signal for this story. 

Election officials in Greenwich didn’t immediately respond to inquiries Tuesday from The Daily Signal. 

Following the 2020 controversy distribution Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, donated $350 million in grants to the liberal Center for Tech and Civic Life promote The billionaires said they would no longer finance future projects related to mail-in voting and drop boxes.

Also, 24 states Bans were enacted against the use of private money to finance election administration. These were mostly red states but some voted Democrat in last year’s presidential election: Arizona Georgia Pennsylvania Virginia. 

The Center for Tech and Civic Life declared in April 2022 that it would establish the Alliance for Election Excellence. As reported by The Daily Signal in July, the largest funder of the alliance’s five-year, $80 million initiative is The Audacious ProjectIt is funded mainly by people connected to the Big Tech sector including Amazon and Microsoft.

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