“As Mark and Priscilla made clear previously, their election infrastructure donation to help ensure that Americans could vote during the height of the pandemic was a one-time donation given the unprecedented nature of the crisis,” Ben LaBolt, a spokesperson for Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan, said. “They have no plans to repeat that donation.”
Zuckerberg and Chan contributed at least $350 million to the nonprofit Center for Technology and Civic Life ahead of the 2020 election, allocated to local election offices. The nonprofit said that this year, it would instead initiate a different program dubbed the U.S. Alliance for Election Excellence.
RE-SHAPING THE FUTURE: TENNESSEE GOV. BILL LEE UNVEILS BOLD PLAN FOR "EDUCATION FREEDOM"
The program is an $80-million, five-year effort intended to build a network for the nation’s thousands of local election officials, who can apply for aid to improve their technology and processes, the Associated Press reported.
WATCH: TULSI GABBARD ADDRESSES WHO REALLY INFLUENCES POLICY, AND IT'S NOT BIDEN...
“Unfortunately, years of underinvestment means many local election departments often have limited capacity and training. The U.S. Alliance for Election Excellence is bringing together world-class partners so that local election officials no longer have to go it alone,” said Tiana Epps-Johnson, CTCL’s executive director.
DIPLOMATIC RIFT DEEPENS: NETANYAHU CANCELS TALKS WTH BIDEN AFTER UN CALLS FOR CEASEFIRE
Conservatives have criticized Zuckerberg and Chan’s donation before 2020 as helping shift the presidential election in President Biden’s favor.
Mollie Hemingway, editor-in-chief of The Federalist, told Fox News Digital on Tuesday that "while it’s good news that Zuckerberg won’t meddle in this year’s elections, he’s not the only Left-wing tech oligarch who can finance these Left-wing groups.”
FIVE ARRESTED IN SOUTHERN TEXAS FOR TRAFFICKING OF MILITARY-GRADE WEAPONS TO CARTEL
“The Left-wing Center for Technology and Civic Life, run by Obama political veterans, has already admitted it plans to continue its takeover of government election offices in swing states using the same grant model it deployed with Zuckerberg funding in 2020,” she added. “These grants enabled these left-wing activists to essentially run the entire Democrat Get-Out-The-Vote operation from inside the government. States that care about election integrity need to protect their systems from control by the world’s wealthiest and most powerful individuals.”
WATCH: AOC DISPLAYING HER IGNORANCE ONCE AGAIN
Hemingway has long sounded the alarm on Zuckerberg’s donations, telling Fox News’ Tucker Carlson in October, “This is crazy that it was allowed to happen.”
“So he [Zuckerberg] spends about as much money as the federal government does in running our 2020 elections. He gives $419 million to two left-wing groups who then funnel the money primarily to Democrat counties in swing states,” she said, highlighting the donations were more than $400 million.
ELON MUSK'S LEGAL SALVO AGAINST HATE SPEECH BACKFIRES AFTER JUDGE DISMISSES LAWSUIT
It enabled “this army of Left-wing people to come in and handle everything … they target[ed] registration to Democrat communities, they translate[d] ballots, they design[ed] ballots,” she said.
In response to Zuckerberg’s donations, at least eight GOP-controlled states have passed laws banning private donations to election offices, including Florida.