Mark Zuckerberg, Priscilla Chan donate US$100m more to US election infrastructure

Facebook Inc Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, said yesterday that they will donate an additional US$100 million to support election officials and fund infrastructure for the US election in November.

“We've gotten a far greater response than we expected from election officials needing funding for voting infrastructure, so today we're committing an additional US$100 million to the Center for Tech and Civic Life to make sure that every jurisdiction that needs funding to help people vote safely can get it,” Zuckerberg said in a Facebook post.

“So far, more than 2,100 local election jurisdictions have submitted applications to CTCL for support,” he wrote.

CTCL is a Chicago-based nonprofit that, according to its website, is “working to foster a more informed and engaged democracy, and helping to modernize US elections.”

The pair previously donated US$300 million to help the US election process deal with challenges related to the Covid-19 pandemic, for example, by funding voting equipment and protective equipment for poll workers

In the post, Zuckerberg also hit back at lawsuits trying to block the use of the funds: “Since our initial donation, there have been multiple lawsuits filed in an attempt to block these funds from being used, based on claims that the organizations receiving donations have a partisan agenda. That's false,” he said.

The Thomas More Society, a conservative legal group that is representing clients and funding lawsuits filed in multiple states, in a statement yesterday doubled down on its allegation that the CTCL seeks to turn out Democrats, saying Zuckerberg's announcement was “further proof that private funds from billionaires must not be allowed to dictate how states manage elections.”

Zuckerberg and Chan's election infrastructure donations come as Facebook faces both regulatory scrutiny from Washington and pressure from lawmakers to protect against misinformation and other election-related abuses on its platform.