BREAKING - Montana County #1 in Nation per capita for CTCL Funds Received
Large sums of Mark Zuckerberg's money infiltrated 28 of 56 Montana counties in the November 2020 election. According to an official 990 tax return from the Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL), Montana took a total of $2.5 million from the Zuckerberg-funded non-profit.
According to an earlier report released by Montana Election Integrity Project (MEIP), Montana again takes the lead in national potential election fraud by having the #1 county in the country in per capita CTCL funds.
Blaine County received $36.40 per capita, the highest of the 28 counties that accepted funds. The second-highest county was Glacier, with $19.15 per capita. It is suspected that the goal was to narrow the margin in Republican states.
In addition, Montana is #4 in the US in per capita CTCL funds, only behind Georgia, Maine, and New Jersey.
In the months leading up to the 2020 election, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan donated a total of $350 million to CTCL. Then, in turn, CTCL channeled those funds in the form of grants to various jurisdictions throughout the United States to help them hire staff, buy mail-in ballot processing machinery, and other measures they deemed necessary to properly handle the election amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Montana Election Integrity Project (MEIP) has spent months investigating the amounts each Montana county received after citizens were told by the Montana Secretary of State’s office that they were “not interested” in tracking CTCL information at the time.
The Center for Tech and Civic Life, or CTCL, claims to be an organization modernizing elections in America. Their mission states they connect Americans with information that will civically engage them and promote professional, inclusive, and secure elections. However, CTCL funds tipped the scales to increase turnout in Democrat-leaning counties in swing states, as well as in counties in traditionally Republican-leaning states like Montana and Utah during the 2020 Presidential Election.
While 30 of the 56 counties applied for and were awarded the funds, two counties declined grant monies before the November 2020 election. The first was Sanders County because they were not familiar with CTCL and didn’t want to give an outside organization access to their bank account for deposit. An email from CTCL to confirm the grant reward status stated, “It’s completely okay if your plans change! CTCL’s job is to get funding into your hands, then get out of your way.” In other words, not genuinely concerned if the funding went towards its intended purpose. Jefferson County also did not accept funds but has not disclosed its reason for doing so.
Election offices anticipated spending the funds mostly on temporary staffing, mail and absentee equipment and supplies, poll workers, PPE, and election equipment. They expected the least amount to go towards voting material in multiple languages, drive-through voting, real estate costs, and ballot drop boxes.
Election administrators aren’t asking tough enough questions about CTCL funds.
Was the $2.5 million spent illegally to “modernize” elections in Montana? One thing is for sure, it is a clear violation of MCA 13-1-302 which states, “Unless specifically provided otherwise, all costs of the regularly scheduled primary and general elections shall be paid by the counties and other political subdivision for which the elections are held.”
While this organization’s intended purpose is to make elections more accessible as well as modernize them, it is clear that there may have been alternative motives. The spending chart, excess funds going to blue-leaning counties, and encouragement to change plans for funding after receiving grant money borders on potential election tampering.
Note two lines of personnel - who did Montana Election offices hire? Also, more clarification is needed on how election administrations in Montana “institutionalized mail-in voting.”
Senate Bill 335, written to prevent CTCL or any outside monies to be used to pay for Montana elections, failed to pass in 2021. The bill, which served to confirm an existing law, which had already established strong rules around accepting private funds to influence elections, eventually failed on a tie vote (see list of legislators by vote).
Other states have made similar discoveries about CTCL’s influence, and want to know more about how the grant monies were spent. Wisconsin received $9 million total from the Zuckerberg Foundation, according to former Justice Michael Gableman. Now the special counsel in charge of investigating the 2020 election in Wisconsin. Gableman presented his findings for the Wisconsin Assembly Committee on Campaigns and Elections hearing on December 1, 2021. According to Gableman, under the guise of keeping voters “safe” during the coronavirus pandemic, the cities in question instead used Zuckerberg funds to run a partisan “get out the vote” initiative in favor of Joe Biden. View the full 56-minute hearing here.
Did Montana counties properly vet CTCL before accepting the funds from a partisan organization?
Montana taxpayers funded their counties’ 2020 election processes but now may take issue with the potential conflict of interest that comes when private funds influence a state’s election infrastructure. Some Montana counties more than doubled their election budgets with the acceptance of the CTCL funds.
The potential issues and legal problems with CTCL funds go deeper, as the founders of CTCL were co-workers at the New Organizing Institute (NOI) for several years before the organization dissolved in 2015. NOI has been described by a Washington Post reporter as the "Democratic Party’s Hogwarts for digital wizardry" and was a major training center for left-of-center digital activists over the decades of its existence.
Reluctance to investigate questions surrounding Montana’s 2020 election
Montana’s Republican Party, with the exception of a handful of legislators and state senators, is now the latest stumbling block to answering questions that continue to increase surrounding the 2020 election. The Montana state GOP was unwilling to add election integrity or apparent fraud to their agenda for their winter conference. Montana’s Secretary of State, State Election Director, Governor, and Attorney General have each been presented personally with evidence of potential fraud, yet none has stepped forward to address this publicly with concerned citizens.
As new evidence of potential CTCL influence emerges across the country, Montanans may want to know whether the millions of dollars our state received from the Zuckerbergs may have induced our elected officials to do something other than to treat all candidates and voting citizens fairly and impartially and whether those positions of power used the Zuckbucks to “get out the vote” for a particular candidate, including those in down-ballot Montana races.