Cash-strapped Election Offices Have Fewer Resources After Bans On Private Grants

Matt Vasilogambros | Stateline.org (TNS) In April, Wisconsin joined 27 other states that have banned or restricted local governments’ use of private donations to run cash-strapped election offices, buy voting equipment or hire poll workers for Election Day. All of the state laws came in the past four years, pushed by conservative lawmakers and activists who claim that Democratic voters disproportionately benefited from hundreds of millions of dollars in grants primarily funded by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, during the 2020 presidential election. Courts and federal regulators have rejected those claims, but the debate over the role of outside money reveals a broader worry among election experts, who say there are significant shortcomings in local government funding of election offices.