Raffensperger took $5 million grant from Zuckerberg

FPI / April 15, 2021

Georgia spent more than $5 million from a group funded by leftist Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to press voters in the state to apply for ballots online for the 2020 presidential election and 2021 Senate runoffs, a report said.

The Washington, D.C.-based Center for Election Innovation and Research (CEIR), donated the money. With it, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and his staff carried out a variety of tasks, according to the CEIR website.

The Georgia Star News in an April 13 report noted that it had contacted Raffensperger’s communications staff Monday for comment. Raffensperger Spokesman Walter Jones did not specifically describe how the secretary of state spent the money — but the CEIR website did.

“Georgia used CEIR grant funds in both the November general election and January runoff election to encourage voters to apply for a ballot online,” the CEIR website said.

“Any grant or funding source, as allowed by Georgia law, has enabled this and local elections offices to combat disinformation similar to recent articles published by this outlet that undermine the confidence of Georgia voters,” Jones said in response to the Star News inquiry.

The Georgia Star News did not debut until after Nov. 3, 2020.

Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan donated $419 million to two non-profit groups that provided private funding to state, county, and municipal governments for election administration in the 2020 presidential election, Breitbart News reported.

Of that, $350 million went to the Center for Technology and Civic Life, which spent at least $24 million in key Georgia counties; $69 million went to the CEIR, which privately funded state level operations through Secretary of State offices in 23 states, including $13 million in Pennsylvania, $11 million in Michigan, $5.6 million in Georgia, and $4 million in Arizona – four key battleground states that Joe Biden supposedly won by narrow margins.

In an undated press release, Raffensperger had announced the partnership with CEIR. In the release, presumably published last year, Raffensperger praised the CEIR staff as “the greatest minds that the country has to offer” and, because of that, he said Georgia could have a secure and reliable paper-ballot system.

CEIR Executive Director David Becker also serves as election law expert for CBS News, according to his LinkedIn page.

Free Press International