Amistad Project: Federal Lawsuits Filed To Challenge Use Of Zuckerberg Millions, Claims Funds Used To Influence Election Outcome In Battleground States
AMHERST, Va., Sept. 24, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, voters in four battleground states filed lawsuits in federal courts to block the alleged funneling of millions of dollars from Mark Zuckerberg, Google, and others through the Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL), intended to use government employees to influence the outcome of the presidential election on November 3. The Complaint claims that the use of the funds violates a federal law known as the Help America Vote Act, which prohibits local governments from accepting private federal election grants without state legislative approval and results in government playing favorites in the election process.
The complaints detail how CTCL has used the funds to issue "grants" to local municipal governments, which are allocating them to fund election activities. These efforts are intentionally targeting Democratic strongholds for the purpose of boosting voter turnout in those areas that delivered overwhelming majorities for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election in a clear effort to sway the statewide 2020 elections.
"Government cannot be in the business of playing favorites in elections. These targeted funds pay government officials to turn out the vote in blue jurisdictions while the governors in these states are making it difficult and actually discouraging in-person voting on Election Day in more conservative areas of the states," explained Phill Kline, the Director of the Amistad Project of the Thomas More Society, representing the voters in the four federal lawsuits. "Government targeting Democrat portions of a state to increase voter turnout, while also targeting Republican areas of the state to make it harder to vote, violates the basic premise of American jurisprudence that we are all equal before the law," he added.
"While Mark Zuckerberg can use his private funds to help voters, these city and county officials can't use the funds from CTCL to favor a certain class of voters over another. America has a dark history of voter suppression before the Voting Rights Act became law. This rigging of the game is the other side of that same coin," Kline concluded.
Cumulatively, CTCL has thus far "granted" nearly $26 million to the defendant cities and counties, which had cast nearly 76% of their over 2.5 million combined total votes for Hillary Clinton in 2016. President Trump won Michigan by 10,704 votes, Minnesota by 44,593 votes, Pennsylvania by 44,292 votes, and Wisconsin by 22,748 votes that year.
CTCL is a left-leaning election activist group pushing major government voting initiatives in Democratic strongholds, which raises alarms about the integrity of the November election and demonstrates a present danger in allowing private groups to influence elections. The group boasts that its major funding sources include Google and Facebook, and the group just recently received a contribution of $250 million from billionaire Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife.
According to the complaints, the CTCL funds are being used for equipment for mail-in and absentee voting; satellite election offices for in-person mail-in voting; in-person voting at polling places on Election Day; dropboxes, in some cases hundreds of them, for hand-delivering mail-in ballots without U.S. post marks; and voter registration programs. In Michigan alone, the precincts that receive funds from CTCL may have up to a $100 to $1 funding advantage over precincts that rely on Michigan Election Commission funds alone to help manage their elections.
"This partisan privatization of our elections can't stand," commented Tom Brejcha, the President of the Thomas More Society. "Imagine a future where wealthy individuals can essentially purchase the county or city election apparatus anywhere through such creative grants to accomplish their personal objectives," Brejcha added.
The defendants in the federal lawsuits include the cities of East Lansing, Flint, Lansing, and Wayne County/Detroit, Michigan; Minneapolis, Minnesota; Delaware County and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and Green Bay, Kenosha, Madison, Milwaukee, and Racine, Wisconsin. The plaintiffs are the Minnesota Voters Alliance; the Election Integrity Fund (Michigan); several state legislators and congressional candidates in Pennsylvania; and the Wisconsin Voters Alliance.
Summary Election Behavior of Targeted CTCL Jurisdictions ? 9/23/20
Jurisdiction/City | Grant Amount | Trump | Clinton | Clinton % |
Green Bay City, WI | $1,093,400 | 19,821 | 21,291 | 51.79% |
Kenosha City, WI | $862,779 | 15,829 | 22,849 | 59.07% |
Madison City, WI | $1,271,788 | 23,053 | 120,078 | 83.89% |
Milwaukee City, WI | $2,154,500 | 45,167 | 188,653 | 80.68% |
Racine City, WI | $942,100 | 8,934 | 19,029 | 68.05% |
Philadelphia City, PA | $10,000,000 | 108,748 | 584,025 | 84.30% |
Wayne County, MI-Detroit | $3,512,000 | 7,682 | 234,871 | 96.83% |
Flint City, MI | $475,625 | 4,572 | 24,790 | 84.42% |
East Lansing, MI | $8,500 | 4,147 | 13,073 | 75.9% |
Lansing, MI | $440,000 | 11,219 | 32,716 | 74.46% |
Minneapolis City, MN | $3,000,000 | 25,693 | 174,585 | 87.17% |
Delaware County, PA | $2,200,000 | 110,667 | 177,402 | 61.58% |
Totals: | $25,960,692 | 548,373 | 2,003,237 | 75.68% |
Sources
https://www.wpr.org/wisconsin-cities-getting-6-3m-grants-help-elections-during-pandemic
https://elections.wi.gov/node/6993
https://www.politico.com/2016-election/results/map/president/wisconsin/
https://detroitmi.gov/sites/detroitmi.localhost/files/2018-05/official-results-nov-8-2016.pdf
https://www.mlive.com/politics/2016/11/michigans_presidential_electio.html
https://www.mlive.com/news/flint/2016/11/donald_trump_beat_hillary_clin.html
https://news.jrn.msu.edu/2016/11/east-lansing-votes-deep-blue-students-precincts-less-certain/
https://www.philadelphiavotes.com/en/resources-a-data/ballot-box-app
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SOURCE Amistad Project
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