Exhibit B — 'Charities Are Stepping Up' article — PA Voters Alliance v. Centre County (M.D. Pa.)

Summary

Exhibit B, filed September 25, 2020 in Pennsylvania Voters Alliance v. Centre County in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, is a printout of an Associated Press article by Nicholas Riccardi, “‘Not Plan A’: Charities Are Stepping Up To Pay For 2020 Elections,” reporting that Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan announced $300 million for the Center for Tech and Civic Life and the Center for Election Innovation and Research. The article reports that the CARES Act allocated $400 million to election agencies and that CTCL gave $10 million to Philadelphia and $6 million to Fulton County, and it quotes David Becker, Amber McReynolds, Tara McGowan and Scott Walter on private funding of election offices.

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Politics

‘Not Plan A’: Charities Are Stepping Up To Pay For
2020 Elections

By Nicholas Riccardi/Associated Press
Sept. 18, 6 a.m. CT

After Congress failed to approve funding to help election officials adjust to an expected avalanche of mail ballots, philanthropy is
stepping in. J. Scott Applewhite / Associated Press

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After Congress failed to approve funding to help election officials adjust to an expected avalanche of mail ballots,
philanthropy is stepping in. J. Scott Applewhite / Associated Press

Politics

‘Not Plan A’: Charities Are Stepping Up To Pay For 2020
Elections

By Nicholas Riccardi/Associated Press
Sept. 18,6 a.m. CT

As Congress balks, well-funded nonprofits are donating hundreds of millions of
dollars to help state and local officials run elections during the pandemic — a
sudden infusion of private cash in what was once considered a core government

function.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, earlier this
month announced they will donate $300 million to two nonpartisan nonprofits.
The groups, the Center for Tech and Civic Life and Center for Election Innovation
and Research, will funnel the money to local officials working “to ensure that
everyone can vote and every vote can be counted,” Zuckerberg said in announcing

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The Center for Tech and Civic Life had already doled out more than $20 million
from other donors — money that allowed the city of Philadelphia to double its
election budget and quadruple its mail-ballot-processing capacity. In Milwaukee,
its contribution is helping recruit as many as 1,000 new poll workers. In Fulton
County, Georgia, the cash will help keep open more polling places after a June
primary plagued by last-minute closures of polling places.

The nonprofits’ involvement was welcomed by election officials who have been
pleading with state and federal lawmakers for help paying for a raft of new
equipment, protective gear and staff needed to adjust for the surge of mail-in
voting expected this year. Congress sent money in March, largely to assist with
primary elections. Republicans have blocked Democratic attempts to allocate
more.

The direct infusion of millions of dollars marks a new level in private funding for
a core public responsibility. The cash comes with a new set of questions about
donor transparency, motivations and the influence of groups and figures that are
not democratically accountable.

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“This is not Plan A,” said David Becker, head of the Center for Election Innovation
and Research, which received $50 million from Zuckerberg and Chan. However,
Becker said his group, which until this year normally raised about a million
dollars a year, was trying to respond to what he considered an emergency caused
by the pandemic.

With the election nearing, “failure is not an option,” he said.

Charitahle ingtitutions have lange nlaved sunnortive roles in elections hv

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activity has picked up dramatically. Companies like Microsoft and Target have
announced they'll give paid leave to employees who work the polls. Basketball
teams have promised to turn sports arenas into polling centers at no cost.

But the amount of money and direct payments to public agencies that run
elections mark a dramatic new level of mobilization. Election advocates say it was
necessitated by Congress’ failure to step in.

The CARES Act, passed in late March, allocated $400 million to election agencies
to help update voting systems. The Brennan Center for Justice, a voting rights
advocacy group, estimated it could cost $4 billion to prepare the election offices
across the country.

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House Democrats in May approved a second coronavirus relief bill that included
an additional $3.6 billion, but Senate Republicans didn’t act on the measure.
Instead, last week they proposed their own “skinny” bill that did not have any
election money and that did not pass the Senate.

“Congress allocated $60 billion to the airlines and only $400 million to
thousands of election offices across 50 states,” said Amber McReynolds, whose
nonprofit Vote from Home hopes to begin distributing small grants to help local
offices pay for ballot drop boxes and electronic tracking of mail ballots.

The Chicago-based Center for Tech and Civic Life began doling out grants this
summer. The organization was founded in 2012 by former staffers at the

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bipartisan — its board includes Pam Anderson, a Republican former election
administrator in suburban Denver. The group says its stated mission is using
technology to modernize voting.

Federal records show it has typically raised about $1 million annually before this
year. But donations have been flowing in as concern mounts over the ability of
election officials to handle November. The Center gave $6.2 million to
Wisconsin’s five largest cities, $10 million to Philadelphia, and $6 million to
Fulton County, which includes Atlanta. Zuckerberg and Chan then contributed an
additional $250 million.

The CTCL declined to disclose its other donors for the year or itemize all its
contributions to local offices.

The group says the money will go toward recruiting poll workers and
implementing drive-up voting sites, while the money to the CEIR, the second,
unrelated nonprofit, will go to public information campaigns explaining mail
balloting procedures and logistics on pandemic voting.

Anderson, who is also on the board of CEIR, said nobody thinks the situation is
ideal. “I hope it leads to a broader conversation about funding election
administration — if we want it, let’s fund it,” she said.

Becker, who expects to have his share of the grant distributed as soon as the end
of the month, said the money will be critical in ensuring the public has confidence
in the election. But, he noted, it comes too late for most election offices to make
major changes, like buying expensive mail-sorting machines or updating voting
systems.

“What they could have done with billions in June is very different than what they
can do now,” Becker said. “Running an efficient election should be something

government invests in.”

The donation from Zuckerberg, who made his fortune creating a social media
behemoth that is a center of false claims about the election and voting, has
frustrated some who see it as a bid for good public relations.

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the world, a donation in the final weeks of the election is too little, too late,” said

Tara McGowan, a Democratic digital strategist.

Conservatives note the Democratic origins of CTCL and that its donations have
predominantly been in areas where Democrats depend on votes. The group has
announced an upcoming series of grants to rural areas but hasn’t provided
specifics.

“I cannot believe people of such partisanship will put their partisanship aside
while taking hundreds of millions of dollars and distributing it to election offices,”
said Scott Walter, head of the conservative Capital Research Center, which

monitors nonprofits.

Still, Walter acknowledged, conservative-leaning nonprofits — and the GOP
Senate — have not stepped in to help elections officials.

“Honestly, I wish the right would do it, not only so the election would be more
balanced but so we could have an honest debate about whether [charities] should
do this,” Walter said.

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