Legislation barring Facebook’s billionaire founder Mark Zuckerberg and others from privately funding ‘get out the vote’ initiatives like he did during the 2020 election cycle is headed to Virginia GOP Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s desk after it passed the state legislature this week.
“The General Assembly of Virginia successfully passed a series of bills this week that would prohibit state and local election officials from accepting certain gifts and funding from private individuals or nongovernmental entities that would impact how elections are conducted within the Commonwealth,” The Federalist reported on Friday.
The legislation, if Youngkin signs it as expected, mandates “[t]he State Board, the Department, each local electoral board, and all offices of the general registrar shall not solicit, accept, use, or dispose of any money, grants, property, or services given by a private individual or nongovernmental entity for the purpose of funding voter education and outreach programs, voter registration programs, or any other expense incurred in the conduct of elections.”
The measure exempts operating polling places and voter satellite offices in places offered by private individuals or non-governmental entities, however.
Del. Otto Wachsmann Jr., who introduced the measure in the House of Delegates, told the outlet he was “pleased” the measure was successfully passed in both legislative chambers. He added that “outside entities” now would no longer be able “to influence how elections are run by the state.”
“While nongovernmental groups are allowed to conduct events like voter registration drives outside of our governmental agencies, this bill clarifies that they have no business directly influencing the way that our registrars and electoral boards conduct their business,” Wachsmann said. “That is the sole role of our governmental agencies. I am pleased that the General Assembly has agreed with this concept.”
The Federalist adds:
In explaining the need for the legislation, Wachsmann cited a press release from U.S. Rep. Claudia Tenney, R-N.Y., which details how Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg gave $350 million to the Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL), a left-wing advocacy group.
CTCL spent millions on “financing the infiltration of election offices at the city and county level by left-wing activists, and using those offices as a platform to implement preferred administrative practices, voting methods, and data-sharing agreements, as well as to launch intensive outreach campaigns in areas heavy with Democratic voters” leading up to the 2020 election.
Wachsmann also noted figures from the Capital Research Center, which show CTCL spending nearly $4 million “Zuckbucks” in Virginia during the 2020 election cycle. While the report notes that CTCL distributed funds to more counties won by Trump (22 of 87) than Biden (14 of 46), over 90 percent ($3.4 million) of the organization’s funding was given to the 14 Biden-won counties, with less than 10 percent ($358,910) going towards the 22 Trump-won counties.
“This is the second-most lopsided bias in favor of Democratic-leaning counties we’ve identified (after Texas),” the report concludes.
During his 2021 campaign, Youngkin pledged to make “election integrity” in Virginia a top priority.
Youngkin press secretary Macaulay Porter said that the governor “will review the legislation when it comes to his desk.”
As noted by The Federalist Editor in Chief Mollie Hemingway in her New York Times bestselling book, “Rigged: How the Media, Big Tech, and the Democrats Seized Our Elections,” Meta CEO Zuckerberg “didn’t just help Democrats by censoring their political opponents,” his financing of “liberal groups running partisan get-out-the-vote operations” was ultimately “the means by which [Democrat] activists achieved their ‘revolution’ and changed the course of the 2020 election.”
