Old Dominion News

The Virginia General Assembly, with unanimous support from the state Senate, sent Gov. Glenn Youngkin legislation earlier this month that will ban the use of private funds to help underwrite the management of elections. 

Youngkin, a Republican, is expected to sign the bill into law.

With Youngkin’s signature, Virginia will follow other states that have banned election officials from accepting the private funds, much of it from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who funneled the money through nonprofits, most prominently the Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL) that in turn sent grants to election officials. In return for the grants, the officials were required to follow a set of guidelines covering voter procedures, including encouraging the use of mail ballots and drop boxes.  

“As more of America realizes how outrageous and unfair the injection of private money, so called Zuckerbucks, into elections is, the more Americans reject the idea,” Ken Cuccinelli, a former Virginia attorney general and national chairman of the Election Transparency Initiative, told Old Dominion News. “So impressed to see my own home state pass a Zuckerbucks ban on a bipartisan basis, and grateful to Gov. Youngkin for supporting it."

“Make no mistake, the corrupting influence of big tech oligarchs like Mark Zuckerberg manipulates the official voting apparatus and dilutes the voice and votes of Virginians in order to affect turnout," Cuccinelli added in a statement.

CTCL received nearly $400 million in Zuckerberg money leading up to the November 2020 General Elections. The bulk of the money went to Democratic areas in battleground states in a disguised get out the vote effort, according to an ongoing investigation by the Capital Research Center (CRC) and other government watchdog groups.

The conservative-leaning CRC reports that the states banning or restricting the private fund currently stands at 16, with more on the way.

“Banning private donors from bankrolling public elections shouldn’t be a divisive cause,” wrote CRC’s Hayden Ludwig. “Left or right, Americans ought to, and from what we’ve seen do, believe that the people who administer elections should do so without undue influence from a donor. How else can they trust that election outcomes are fair and genuine?”