Congresswoman Claudia Tenney, co-chair of the Election Integrity Caucus, reintroduced the End Zuckerbucks Act to amend the Internal Revenue Code to prohibit 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organizations from directly funding official election organizations through donations or donated services.
According to Rep. Tenney, in the 2020 election, Mark Zuckerberg used a non-profit organization called the Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL) to shell out $350 million to local boards of elections in left-leaning county governments in Texas, Ohio, Nevada, Minnesota, Georgia, Florida, Arizona, and Pennsylvania under the guise of “making voting safer amid the pandemic.” Tenney says less than 1% of those funds were spent on PPE or other measures to implement safety protocols at voting sites. She claims this funding, 92% of which went to left-leaning districts, was provided with little to no oversight on spending, and reports indicate it was used to fund advertising, vehicle purchases, and other activities unrelated to the pandemic.
Tenney added that since then, CTCL has been using its subsidiary organization, the Alliance for Election Excellence, to provide heavily discounted services to certain jurisdictions. This includes in-depth consulting services that can help shape the voting process without democratic input from residents.
“Allowing private, billionaire donors with corrupt political agendas to fund our elections undermines public trust in our elections and threatens our self-governing Constitutional Republic,” said Congresswoman Tenney. “So far, 28 states have banned Zuckerbucks, reiterating the urgent need to do so on the federal level. We must ban billionaires and corrupt special interest groups from spending millions to influence our election administration and voting policies.”
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