Poltifact does a bit of rehabilitation of Jocelyn Benson's prior acts, and then really decides to be less than forthcoming about the effect of Zuckerberg's et al.'s outside funding of elections.
Politico: Before election, Michigan Republicans blast Secretary of State Benson for her oversight of last one
Interestingly Politifact tends to gloss over the Michigan Court of Claims nailing her for illegally deciding that clerks did not need to verify signatures on absentee ballots, and omits quite a few other things she did in the 2020 election that were rather questionable.
Then they get to quite an interesitng observation about outside funding, mainly from Mark Zuckerberg et al, that when actually looked at paints a rather different picture than what they claim was an even-handed funding to both Republican and Democrat locales as they state they both received grants:
Democratic- and Republican-leaning communities received election grants
Over the past two years, Republicans have railed against private grants distributed to elections offices in 2020 from the Center for Tech and Civic Life, which received millions of dollars from Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan. Republicans have dubbed the donations "Zuckerbucks" and allege the funds were funneled to Democratic-leaning communities to boost turnout in those places.
. . .
More than 450 Michigan municipalities received grants from the Center for Tech and Civic Life, according to tax filings. That included a large $7.4 million grant for Detroit — the state's largest voting jurisdiction — which went for President Joe Biden. It also included donations to smaller communities Trump won, such as Macomb County's Chesterfield Township, which received a $16,545 grant, and Ottawa County's Allendale Township, which secured a $15,398 grant.
Looks totally fair right? Democrat stronghold gets $7.4 million, and Republican township in a Democrat County got $16,545.00. Sounds totes the same, doesn't it?
So let's dig into this a little deeper.
Detroit, with 246,562 voters in the last presidential election that went 233,908 for Biden (95%) received $30 per voter in that election from Zuck et all to get out the vote, and essentially $28.50 for each Democrat vote.
Meanwhile Chesterfield Township, which went 63% Republican and had 25,822 voters of which 16,421 voted Republican, and 9,401 voted Democrat received 64 cents per voter, or all of 40 cents per Republican vote.
This seems totes the same thing, right?
Sure, some Republican-majority communities got some funding, to make it appear at first glance the funding was non-partisan. But it appears to be less than a pittance compared to the millions poured into Democrat strongholds to help drive the vote in 2020 - for example, New York City received the largest grant of $19 Million).
In short, Zuckerbucks sure as heck helped the Democrats in 2020, no matter how Poiltifact wants to gloss over or paint those facts.
3 comments:
I just read about the influence of outside money on Michigan's elections a couple of days ago, when researching the 3 proposals on our ballot. I didn't find it broken down like this, but thanks for this additional help.
I had planned on voting against outside money for our elections, just because of this very reason. Any outside money used for any reason is just one more way for people to try and affect our elections. And you can bet that they will figure out a way to make it happen.
Are you really surprised by any of this?
Pigpen51: Yep, it's an impressive rabbit-hole. About half if not more of Whitmer's campaign funds in the past and present election are coming from outside the state, mainly from California. Money coming in to "assist" elections in certain areas is even more of an issue. To claim outside money to help our elections isn't a problem is some impressive blindness.
Old NFO: No, but I love the glib fact-check that states both Republicans and Democrat regions received funds and hence it's totes fine - yet fails to reveal the massive disparity in the amount of funds that were pumped into Democrat regions compared to a pittance to Republican areas to create an air of "fairness".
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