Who should fund our public elections?
Partisan billionaires?
Last election, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Dr. Priscilla Chan, “gave $419 million to two nonprofit organizations that disbursed grants in 2020 to more than 2,500 election departments,” reports The New York Times.
The idea was to help officials deal with holding an election during a pandemic. No laws were necessarily broken. Apparently, private individuals and groups can give money to government election offices — even “with strings attached.”
“Some conservatives see this largesse of ‘Zuckerbucks,’” informs a Wall Street Journal editorial, “as a clever plot to help Democrats win.” In fact, a Capital Research Center (CRC) analysis found the liberal non-profit “consistently gave bigger grants and more money per capita to counties that voted for Biden.”
“[A] deep dive into the available data shows that the funds were largely requested for get-out-the-vote efforts, influenced voter turnout in favor of Democrats, and may have impacted the results of the election in some states,” explains the Foundation for Government Accountability. “According to currently available information, less than one percent of the funds were actually spent on PPE nationwide.”
Can you imagine the outcry if a group with “conservative ties” funded by Charles Koch was giving grants to help Republican-rich jurisdictions rock the vote?
“[E]ven under the purest motives,” the Journal’s editorial offers, “private election funding is inappropriate and sows distrust.”
That’s why 16 states have since passed laws to restrict private funding of election programs.
Mr. Zuckerberg himself sees the danger in Zuckerbucks: “To be clear, I agree with those who say that government should have provided these funds, not private citizens.” Last week, he announced he would not be providing such funding in the 2022 elections.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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3 replies on “Zuckerbuck Sucker Punch”
I remember seeing so many libs complain about the Koch Brothers donating to Republican/Conservative candidates and being lambasted. Not sure if the donations were under the same rules…
“Okay, I admit that I did it. Now let’s ban it, ’cause I’d rather be prevented myself from doing it than see other people with whom I disagree do it.”
All attempts at legally restricting expressive political efforts are violations of the First Amendment. Yes, some people shouldn’t vote because they have stupid or perverse beliefs, and therefore shouldn’t be encouraged to vote; but the “shouldn’t” cannot properly be incorporated into law.
Moreover, “Fairness” Doctrines, in broadcast policy and in campaign financing, are always a matter of setting the watchers to watch themselves.
“a Capital Research Center (CRC) analysis found the liberal non-profit ‘consistently gave bigger grants and more money per capita to counties that voted for Biden.'”
There are some interesting “correlation versus causation” questions here.
For example, which counties APPLIED for the money? If Democratic counties asked for the money and Republican counties didn’t, Democratic counties getting the money and Republican counties not getting the money can hardly be blamed on Democratic counties, or on Zuckerberg’s organization.
And: What problems did the money solve, and were those problems present and as bad in counties that didn’t get the money as in counties that did? If the money just “leveled the playing field” in terms of e.g. easing difficulty of voting such that it counties that got the money look more, not less, like counties that didn’t, then while that would arguably have benefited the counties that got the money, what’s the problem with that? If two counties have moats full of alligators around the polling place, but one county has a bridge, and the other doesn’t, giving the latter county a bridge to match the former county doesn’t seem like a bad thing.