SC counties took millions in election grants funded by Facebook CEO. Now 2 face suits
A conservative law group that has filed legal challenges against local elections offices across the country for accepting private grants funded by Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg has brought suit against Charleston and Richland counties claiming their acceptance of the grants is unconstitutional.
A group calling itself the South Carolina Voter’s Alliance that is represented and bankrolled by a prominent anti-abortion law firm argues in a federal lawsuit filed Thursday that the counties violated federal law by accepting and using a combined $1.4 million in private grant funding from the Center for Tech and Civic Life to assist with the administration of the 2020 general election.
The group, which claims the election grants improperly targeted areas with high rates of progressive voters, seeks an injunction preventing Charleston and Richland counties from accepting and using the grant money or anything purchased with it.
Greenville County, which received a $660,000 grant from the Center for Tech and Civic Life but went for President Donald Trump by nearly 25 percentage points in 2016, is not named as a defendant.
“The plaintiffs do not want progressive candidates to win in the November 3 elections,” the suit states. “The plaintiffs are injured by CTCL’s private federal election grants because they are targeted to counties and cities with historically consistent voter patterns—these grants enhance the current disparities and further disenfranchise plaintiffs.”
The Amistad Project of the Thomas More Society, the nonprofit law group behind the litigation, has filed similar lawsuits in a number of swing states and states with hotly contested U.S. congressional races, including Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Texas.
The suits are part of a self-described “campaign to block cities and counties from the alleged misuse of $250 million donated by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg ... to influence the outcome” of the November election.
They argue the funding, which has been used by elections offices to pay poll workers, purchase voting equipment and run voter education campaigns, among other things, has created “constitutionally-impermissible public-private partnerships” with counties and cities, and usurped the role of state governments in determining election funding priorities.
Amistad Project director Phil Kline, who said he was managing about 20 such lawsuits nationwide, claimed that allowing private interests to direct money to fund local election operations profoundly endangers the integrity of those elections.
“Private interests are telling local governments where to spend the money. That’s the problem and that should not happen with a core government function like counting ballots,” he said. “No private interest should be between the voter and the results when government has the role of counting ballots.”
He said if Zuckerberg, who, with his wife Priscilla Chan, has donated $350 million to the Center for Tech and Civic Life to be regranted to local elections offices in all 50 states, really cared about all voters he’d give the money to state legislatures, which cannot legally discriminate in how they disburse the funds.
By going through counties, without the express approval of the state legislature, CTCL is sidestepping the law and letting Facebook’s CEO pick winners and losers in the election, Kline claimed.
“It’s like stuffing money into the pockets of the umpire before he calls the first ball or strike,” he said.
The Center for Tech and Civic Life, which is not named as a defendant in the South Carolina lawsuit, did not respond to requests for an interview, but did provide a general statement about the Amistad Project’s allegations.
“As a non-partisan organization backed by Democrats, Republicans, and nonpartisan officials, we are confident that these frivolous charges are without merit, and look forward to continuing this critical grant program in these unprecedented times,” the statement said.
The Center for Tech and Civic Life said elections officials from across the political spectrum whose jurisdictions lacked the funding to provide a safe and secure election due to the coronavirus pandemic had sought assistance from the organization.
“In this moment of need, we feel fortunate to administer an open call grant program available to every local election department in every state in the union to ensure that they have the staffing, training, and equipment necessary so that this November every eligible voter can participate in a safe and timely way and have their vote counted,” the organization said in a statement.
Officials in both Richland and Charleston counties declined comment on the lawsuit.
The counties received $730,000 and $695,000, respectively, in grant funding from the Center for Tech and Civic Life earlier this year.
In Richland, the majority of that money was earmarked for a ballot counting machine and a mail sorting machine intended to aid in processing the anticipated surge in absentee ballots. The rest of the money was slated for additional voting machines and advertising to promote absentee voting.
It wasn’t immediately clear if all of the grant money had already been spent.
Charleston County elections Director Joe Debney said Friday that he’d used the grant money his office received to recruit and pay poll workers, open an additional absentee voting site and post signage across the county to promote absentee voting and voter registration efforts.
He said the grant had allowed him to bring on between 400 and 600 more poll workers than he typically assigns in a general election and to pay them an extra $100 on top of the $165 they normally receive.
Debney said he felt confident that even if voter turnout is very high and some poll workers no-show on Election Day, Charleston County would still have enough workers to ensure all goes smoothly on Nov. 3.
The election directors in both Richland and Charleston counties said they learned about the grant opportunity through the South Carolina Election Commission.
SCEC spokesman Chris Whitmire said his agency had made sure all counties were aware of the funding opportunity and encouraged them to apply. He said he didn’t know exactly how many had been awarded Center for Tech and Civic Life grants, but knew that numerous counties beyond Richland and Charleston had received money.
According to CTCL, more than 2,100 local jurisdictions across the country have applied for funding, including elections officials in 43 of South Carolina’s 46 counties.
The organization did not respond to a request for a list of which South Carolina counties received funding or how much they were awarded.
Whitmire said the SCEC had no position on the Amistad Project’s lawsuit challenging the grant funding, but said he knew the money had provided a big boost to local elections offices across the state.
“You can ask county directors ‘What did you do with this money?’ and they’ll tell you it’s helped them do a lot of things they couldn’t otherwise have done,” he said. “There are a lot of counties who struggle to find funding to do things and an opportunity like that was very beneficial to them.”
The Amistad Project did not explain why it sued only Richland and Charleston counties — both of which went for Hillary Clinton in 2016 — but not Greenville, Florence or any other South Carolina counties that were awarded CTCL funding.
The group’s suit argues that just as a government’s election policy cannot discriminate against certain demographic groups, it also may not encourage or facilitate voting by favored demographic groups, in this case, progressives.
It claims the Center for Tech and Civic Life could achieve its goal of increasing voter participation among South Carolina progressives by spending on get-out-the-vote campaigns rather than funding county elections offices.
“There’s no way it should be permitted,” Kline said. “And if it is, you’ll see others play this game.”
This story was originally published October 25, 2020 at 5:00 AM.