CTCL Archives - The Pennsylvania Daily Star

Election Integrity Watchdog Recommends 14 Reforms for States to Improve Election Security

February 2, 2024 Just the News

As the 2024 election cycle begins, the Honest Elections Project releases its report on 14 election reforms that states should make to protect the integrity of elections.

With the 2024 presidential primary elections underway, a bipartisan election integrity watchdog has released its updated report on election reforms that they say will help secure their elections. Some of these reforms have been considered or implemented in various states since the 2020 presidential election, during which there were numerous irregularities and inequities.

Commentary: The Left’s Ridiculous Disinformation on Tainted Zuck Bucks

January 27, 2024 Pennsylvania Daily Star Staff

Anyone who’s followed the Mark Zuckerberg “Zuck bucks” story since 2020 has witnessed some spectacular acrobatics from the left.

First, it was denial that a partisan billionaire was trying to privatize the election in swing states. Then, when Democrats unseated President Trump, NPR and others praised Zuck bucks for “saving” the election. When the 2022 midterms came, the cry was for more private funding to “rehabilitate” democracy. Now the media’s latest stop: gaslighting the public into believing any criticism of leftist “dark money” is just conservative propaganda, rather than one of the worst election innovations of our time.

Two North Carolina Counties Withdraw from ‘Zuckerbucks’ Alliance as 2024 Election Cycle Begins

January 25, 2024 Just the News

Two North Carolina counties left a Zuckerbucks nonprofit — where private money is injected into public election administration — as the 2024 election cycle began, citing time commitment as the reason for leaving.

Brunswick and Forsyth counties in North Carolina have left the U.S. Alliance for Election Excellence, a project of the Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL), after joining it last year.

Commentary: Everyone Can Agree on Election Integrity

August 22, 2023August 21, 2023 Pennsylvania Daily Star Staff

At first glance, some Americans could mistakenly conclude that election integrity safeguards are deeply unpopular. After all, liberal politicians and the mainstream media regularly denounce commonsense measures like photo ID laws and routine voter roll cleanups.

No matter what they claim or how loudly they claim it, these voices do not speak for the majority of Americans. As recent polling conducted by Honest Elections Project Action shows beyond all doubt, an overwhelming bipartisan majority of Americans embrace commonsense voting laws that make it easy to vote and hard to cheat.

Senate Panel Recommends Schmidt as Pennsylvania Secretary of State, Votes for Anti-ERIC Bill

June 27, 2023June 26, 2023 Bradley Vasoli

Pennsylvania’s Senate State Government Committee on Monday recommended confirming secretary of the commonwealth nominee Al Schmidt.

The panel voted 10-1 to back the Republican acting secretary and former Philadelphia city commissioner. In a subsequent, off-the-floor meeting, the committee approved a bill to facilitate removal of Pennsylvania from the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), a controversial multi-state data-sharing program supporters say helps states maintain accurate voter rolls. The bill would permit the state to use the Social Security death database and change-of-address records to identify voter-registry errors.

Pennsylvania’s Improved Voter Registry ‘Behind Schedule’

March 31, 2023March 30, 2023 Bradley Vasoli

Pennsylvania’s top election officials this week informed lawmakers that the process of replacing the state’s voter-records system is “behind schedule” but assured them his agency is prioritizing its completion.

Responding to questions from members of the state House Appropriations Committee in preparation for drafting the Fiscal Year 2023-24 budget, Pennsylvania Acting Secretary of State Al Schmidt said 23 counties are testing the initial version of the new SUREVote system.

States, Counties Clash over ‘Zuckerbucks’-Like New Sources of Private Election Funding

March 27, 2023March 26, 2023 Just the News

As “Zuckerbucks” — the injection of private money into public election administration — make a comeback, states and municipalities are clashing over whether the funds should be accepted or banned.

While many states and counties across the country have either restricted or banned the use of private money to fund public elections offices, a nonprofit with progressive Democrat ties that served as the key link in the 2020 Zuckerbucks funding chain is still finding loopholes in some counties as states seek to tighten up their laws.

Social Media Mogul Zuckerberg Funds Recruitment of Progressives to Administer Elections

February 27, 2023 Just the News

The injection of private money into public election administration — or “Zuckerbucks” — is continuing in a new form, as left-leaning candidates are being recruited to run for local elections offices by an organization that receives funds from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.

Zuckerbucks-Backed Group Back in Wisconsin

December 16, 2022December 15, 2022 Pennsylvania Daily Star Staff

The liberal voting activist group that dumped $350 million of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s money on local election offices during the 2020 presidential election is back again with another $80 million to give over the next five years.

And Wisconsin once again will be front and center in the Center for Tech and Civic Life’s “generosity.”

Texas AG Paxton Investigating Zuckerberg-Funded Nonprofit for Alleged Partisan Electioneering Efforts in 2020

November 15, 2022November 14, 2022 The Center Square

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton issued a Civil Investigative Demand to the Center for Tech and Civil Life (CTCL) as part of an investigation his office launched to determine whether it “solicited donations under the pretext of protecting voters from Covid-19 while instead using the funds to support partisan electioneering efforts or election oversight roles normally left to state and local officials.”

CTCL, a self-described non-partisan nonprofit organization, according to the bios posted on its own website and other records, “is led by individuals with distinctly partisan backgrounds,” the AG’s office says. CTCL’s founder and executive director, for example, Tiana Epps-Johnson, was among a group of inaugural Obama Foundation Fellows who previously was the Election Administration director for a progressive grassroots organization, the New Organizing Institute. She also worked on the Voting Rights Project for the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights.

Pennsylvania Governor Signs Compromise Bill Banning Outside Election Funding

July 13, 2022July 12, 2022 Bradley Vasoli

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf (D) this week signed legislation banning nongovernmental entities from issuing grants for election administration and also creating a state-run grant program to meet such administrative needs.

State Senators Lisa Baker (R-Dallas) and Kristin Phillips-Hill (R-Jacobus) sponsored the measure in response to revelations that left-leaning nonprofits like the Chicago-based Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL) bestowed large sums of money on localities across the nation in 2020. (Facebook Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, contributed $350 million to the organization that year.) Most CTCL grants going to Pennsylvania counties subsidized election administration in Democrat-heavy areas.

Corman to Bannon: Election Integrity Will Be Paramount in Pennsylvania Gubernatorial Administration

April 22, 2022April 21, 2022 Bradley Vasoli

Pennsylvania Senate President Pro Tempore and gubernatorial candidate Jake Corman (R-Bellefonte) appeared on Steve Bannon’s War Room Thursday to discuss his proposed reforms to make elections more secure in his state.

Corman promised to call for a special legislative session on election-related legislation the day he takes office. Items he said he intends to address foremost are requiring identification of all voters, rescinding a state policy allowing people to vote by mail without submitting an excuse, banning absentee-ballot drop boxes and banning the use of private grants for election administration.

Pennsylvania Senate Passes Election Integrity Measures

April 15, 2022April 14, 2022 Bradley Vasoli

Pennsylvania Republican Senators this week celebrated their chamber’s passage of two pieces of election-security legislation.

One bill, sponsored by state Sen. Cris Dush (R-Wellsboro), would prohibit the use of drop boxes to collect mail-in and absentee ballots. The other, sponsored by Sens. Lisa Baker (R-Dallas) and Kristin Phillips-Hill (R-Jacobus), would bar state or county employees from approving the use of private donations to fund election administration.

GOP Philadelphia City Commissioner Opposes Restricting Third-Party Election Grants

April 6, 2022April 5, 2022 Bradley Vasoli

Senator Kristin Phillips-Hill and Lisa Baker

At a Pennsylvania Senate hearing Tuesday, Republican Philadelphia City Commissioner Seth Bluestein joined his two Democratic colleagues in supporting continued allowance of private grants for election administration.

Left-wing nonprofits, particularly the Chicago-based Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL), awarded many such grants to election offices in Pennsylvania and across America in 2020. The organization received $350 million that year from Facebook Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan.

Milwaukee Officials Face Zuckerberg-Related Election Bribery Lawsuit

March 28, 2022March 28, 2022 Pennsylvania Daily Star Staff

Three Milwaukee, Wisconsin, officials face accusations of illegally taking “Zuck Bucks” to facilitate voting by purchasing absentee ballot drop boxes, among other things, according to a lawsuit filed by the Thomas More Society.

Commentary: The ‘Blue’ Print for Zuckerberg’s Center for Technology and Civic Life’s Election Intervention in Wisconsin 2020

January 16, 2022 Admin

https://www.flickr.com/photos/timevanson/22568686460

Phill Kline Commentary: It’s Not Good When Public Officials Fear Transparency

December 15, 2021December 14, 2021 Pennsylvania Daily Star Staff

Politics is getting in the way of government transparency, preventing the sort of accountability on which our governing institutions depend for maintaining public trust and legitimacy.

In Wisconsin and elsewhere around the country, public officials are steadfastly refusing to answer basic questions about their official conduct from the people’s elected representatives. These are not salacious questions about their personal conduct, or fishing expeditions designed to stir up political scandal. Legislators are merely seeking to better understand how appointed bureaucrats and elected officials administered the 2020 elections amidst a pandemic and an unprecedented, and in many cases unlawful, infusion of private monies into public election offices.

Pennsylvania’s Attorney General, for instance, has sued to block a legislative subpoena seeking voter information as part of an investigation of the state’s voter registration system, known as SURE. Even though there is ample precedent for disclosing this type of information, the AG’s lawsuit argues that it would violate citizens’ right to privacy, as though allowing lawmakers to access government records would automatically compromise the security of that information.

Phill Kline Commentary: It’s Not Good When Public Officials Fear Transparency

December 15, 2021 Pennsylvania Daily Star Staff

Politics is getting in the way of government transparency, preventing the sort of accountability on which our governing institutions depend for maintaining public trust and legitimacy.

Pennsylvania Bill to Restrict Private Money in Election Administration Passes House

December 15, 2021December 14, 2021 Bradley Vasoli

Republican legislation to stop private organizations from donating selectively to Pennsylvania localities’ election activities passed the state House of Representatives along party lines yesterday.

State Reps. Eric Nelson (R-Greensburg), Clint Owlett (R-Wellsboro) and James Struzzi (R-Indiana) offered the bill after revelations that the Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL) issued grants to counties last year, with much more money reaching Democrat-heavy areas. Facebook Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan contributed $350 million to CTCL in 2020. Former Obama Foundation Fellow Tiana Epps-Johnson serves as the organization’s executive director.

Amendments Fail to Water Down Pennsylvania Bill to Restrict Private Money in Election Administration

December 14, 2021December 13, 2021 Bradley Vasoli

Pennsylvania Democratic lawmakers failed to pass a series of amendments Monday to weaken a state House bill that would restrict the ability of private third parties to fund election administration.

State Rep. Eric Nelson (R-Greensburg) is sponsoring the bill largely in reaction to the role that the Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL) played in election operations in numerous Pennsylvania counties last year. Grants bestowed by CTCL in 2020, which mostly aided Democrat-leaning counties, were funded significantly by Facebook Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg.