Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan donate $300M to "enhance access to voting in the United States"
September 1, 2020 (Erie News Now)
$250M will go to The Center for Tech and Civic Life
$50 million of the donation will go to The Center for Election & Innovation Research
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The Center for Tech and Civic Life and The Center for Election & Innovation Research, organizations focused on improving the voting process, said in a statement Tuesday that the donation will "promote safe and reliable voting in states and localities during the COVID-19 pandemic."
"Many counties and states are strapped financially and working to determine how to staff and fund operations that will allow for ballots to be cast and counted in a timely way," Chan and Zuckerberg said in a statement. "These donations will help to provide local and state officials across the country with the resources, training and infrastructure necessary to ensure that every voter who intends to cast a ballot is able to, and ultimately, to preserve integrity of our elections."
The Center for Tech and Civic Life will use the money to "re-grant funds to local election jurisdictions across the country to help ensure that they have the staffing, training, and equipment necessary" to ensure that voters can participate in the election in a "safe and timely way," according to the press release.
The Center for Election Innovation & Research will use the money to "assist state and local election officials to ensure elections are secure, voters have confidence in election outcomes, and democracy thrives as civic engagement grows," according to the press release.
"This donation will greatly assist election officials as they seek to inform voters about their voting options and any changes, educate them about how they can successfully ensure their ballot is received and counted, and bolster transparency and legitimacy," David Becker, executive director of The Center for Election Innovation & Research, said.
Full article: https://www.erienewsnow.com/story/42575060/mark-zuckerberg-and-priscilla-chan-are-donating-300-million-to-voting-efforts
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The Center for Tech and Civic Life:
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Grantee of Incite.org, founded by a couple, Swati Mylavarapu and Matt Rogers. Both are ex-Googlers and Rogers co-founded Nest.
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Swati also co-founded Arena (www.arena.run) in 2017, an organization that provides training and support to Democratic Party campaign staff (https://www.influencewatch.org/political-party/arena-pac/)
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Some major donors of the Center are Google, Facebook, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Democracy Fund
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Founder of the Center, Tiana Epps-Johnson is a 2020 Skoll Foundation awardee and 2018 Obama Foundation fellow
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Individuals from multiple levels of government including the US Election Assitance Commission also sit on the Advisory Board (https://www.techandciviclife.org/advisory-committee/)