Zuckbucks Florida Elections

Last Of Three ‘Blue’ Florida Counties Returns Its “ZuckBucks” Election Money

The last of three blue counties in Florida that accepted Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s money to help administer elections has agreed to repay the unspent money.

The Public Interest Legal Foundation, or PILF, an Indiana-based conservative election-integrity group that pushed the counties to comply, announced on Monday that Palm Beach County had become the final of the trio to agree to refund “Zuckbucks.”

“The return of this money to the Center for Technology and Civil Life (CTCL) is a victory for election integrity,” PILF President J. Christian Adams said in a statement.

“Zuckbucks were the biggest factor, juicing blue areas in 2020. A private citizen should not be allowed to influence how are elections are run. At the Public Interest Legal Foundation, we are proud to have played a role in ensuring that this money will not be spent to influence the Florida elections in 2022.”

The issue arose ahead of the 2020 election, as Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, donated $350 million to the CTCLife in Chicago, which spread the funding to 2,500 local election agencies nationwide to “hire more staff, buy mail-in ballot processing machinery, and other measures they deemed necessary to properly handle the election amid the COVID-19 pandemic,” according to Influence Watch.

Influence Watch describes the CTCL as an organization that “pushes for left-of-center voting policies and election administration.”

High on the group’s list of priorities for the election were supporting mail-in voting, drive-thru voting and installing “drop boxes.” Even though there was little evidence that in-person voting would facilitate the spread of COVID-19.

In May, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill that banned private funding of elections.

Shortly thereafter, PILF wrote to elections supervisors in Alachua, Leon, and Palm Beach counties to note the legal shift and to call on the counties to return any unspent money.

Alachua had received almost $708,000 and still had $204,000 in the bank. Leon County got $1.4 million and still retained about $665,000. Palm Beach took in $6.8 million and still had $1.3 million on hand.

Alachua and Leon agreed and soon refunded the money. Palm Beach held out until this month, after initially ignoring PILF’s letter and getting sued for its trouble.

According to the Epoch Times, Palm Beach argued that the law did not compel the county to return the funding. But officials relented after PILF noted the funding was accruing interest. The county ultimately agreed to repay about $612,000.

“Elections are meant to be run by tax dollars. They’re not supposed to be influenced by billionaires in Silicon Valley,” PILF spokeswoman Lauren Bowman told the Times.

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