Gov. Wolf funneled Zuckerbucks to Democrat areas

FPI / November 1, 2021

Pennsylvania Democrat Gov. Tom Wolf's administration helped only Democrat-leaning counties secure $21 million in private grants from a Mark Zuckerberg-funded nonprofit ahead of the 2020 election, a report said.

The Pennsylvania Department of State and various leftist groups worked together to funnel the Zuckerbucks to Democrat-leaning counties without offering the same assistance to Republican-leaning counties, Broad + Liberty reported on Oct. 19.

The report cited emails from Wolf's office and the Pennsylvania Department of State which show that former Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar and an official in Wolf’s office invited Democrat-leaning counties to apply, "appearing to aid the selective process at a time when other counties were unaware. No email shows any official in either office providing similar information or assistance to any of the commonwealth’s Republican-leaning counties."

Pennsylvania state Senate President Pro Tempore Jake Corman said the Wolf administration's role in the grant process raises "even more questions" about the "blatant political bias" in the 2020 election.

"Many lawmakers have questioned why private election grants were awarded predominantly to counties that voted for Democrats, even after accounting for population density," Corman said. "Now we have emails showing the Department of State, the Governor's Office and various left-wing groups were working together to ensure private grant money was funneled to areas where Democrats were expected to vote in droves."

According to the Broad + Liberty report, an invitation to apply for the Zuckerbucks was sent to all counties on Sept. 1, only after Zuckerberg had donated $250 million to the effort and nearly a month and a half after Democrat-leaning counties were invited.

Pennsylvania state Rep. Seth Grove said: "This latest report indicates the administration and the Department of State played favorites when they connected certain counties to large sums of grant funding while ignoring other counties. Not only did this create unequal access to voters, but it also essentially disenfranchised voters in counties that did not receive equal funding."

The $21 million Pennsylvania received, which was supposedly meant to help fund elections amid the Covid pandemic, was procured through the Zuckerberg-funded Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL). Half of it went to Philadelphia County, Grove said, representing about $10 spent per voter there. Other counties received around $1 per voter, he said.

During the 2020 election cycle, CTCL donated $350 million to more than 2,500 jurisdictions across the country for election administration. The organization claimed that any election department could apply, and grants ranged from $5,000 to $19 million.

Free Press International