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Financially strained by a surge in absentee balloting ahead of this year’s presidential election, the Onondaga County Board of Elections has turned to an unlikely supporter: a Mark Zuckerberg-backed nonprofit foundation.

The Center for Tech and Civic Life — backed by a $250 million contribution from Facebook CEO Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan — allocated $280,000 in grant funding to the county Board of Elections to cover budget shortfalls ahead of November. The funding comes as Zuckerberg faces renewed scrutiny for Facebook’s role in spreading misinformation regarding the election.

While private entities helping to finance an election is concerning, election officials have little choice this year but to make use of all the resources available to them, said Dustin Czarny, Onondaga County Board of Elections commissioner.

“This is a band-aid to get us through the year,” Czarny said. “Is it worrisome that the private sector has to step in in a public function? Absolutely. But that worry is more a recognition that the federal government has stepped aside and abdicated its responsibility.”

The New York Times first reported Oct. 2 that the New York State Board of Elections had encouraged local boards across the state to seek grant funding from the Center for Tech and Civic Life. Czarny confirmed that state officials, in the absence of support from the federal government, encouraged local boards of elections to turn to the center for help covering additional expenses related to this year’s election. 

The Center for Tech and Civic Life announced in a press release in September that Zuckerberg and Chan committed $250 million to the center specifically for grants to local election jurisdictions. 

The Onondaga County Board of Elections received confirmation only three weeks after applying for the grant, Czarny said. The board must use the grant to cover unplanned expenses related to the election. 

It’s also a reimbursement grant, Czarny said, meaning the board can spend up to $280,000 and expect the center to compensate them in full. While the board has yet to determine exactly what it will spend the funds on, options include extra staff and postage and long-term upgrades, such as a new van to transport items between polling places.

“It’s pretty open-ended on what we can spend that money on,” Czarny said.  “And we plan to spend all of it.”

Onondaga County wasn’t the only central New York county to receive funds from the center. Neighboring Cortland and Cayuga counties applied for the grant and received $28,000 and $37,500, respectively, according to commissioners of each county’s board of elections. 

Czarny believes the center determines grant size by considering the number of eligible voters in each county. But Jenn Grygiel, an assistant professor of communications at Syracuse University who researches social media and disinformation, said voters should be skeptical that expected turnout is the only factor in play.

“That was my first reaction — that this is strategic,” Grygiel said. “This is not just philanthropy, this is strategic, and we need to consider it in that light.”

Zuckerberg has his own political interests, and getting involved in elections as CEO of a company that heavily lobbies the federal government should cause concern, Grygiel said.

The grant funding could also be seen as part of a wider effort by Zuckerberg or his company to shape who votes in the upcoming election. Grygiel compared it to Facebook’s use of its apps — which includes Instagram — to promote voter registration efforts, which may indirectly lead to more users voting for politicians who are friendly to social media companies.

“Depending where they launch their resources, it drives changes in the way people vote,” Grygiel said. “If they put it out on one platform versus another, or in an unequal amount, they might potentially hit different demographics.”

The Center for Tech and Civic Life did not respond to repeated requests for comment from The Daily Orange. The organization’s website, though, does provide limited information about how it processes and allocates grants. 

According to the website, the center calculates grants based on a formula that considers the voting-age population of a jurisdiction, as well as “other demographic data.”

Czarny doesn’t believe there’s much political calculus behind how the nonprofit allocated the grants. In New York state, boards of elections are run jointly by both Republican and Democratic commissioners as mandated by law, he said.

Zuckerberg’s $250 million commitment to the center may also reflect an attempt to distract from the negative attention Facebook has received regarding its role in the election, said Sarah Bolden, a doctoral student at SU’s School of Information Studies. Bolden’s research centers on social media transparency and the relationships between social media companies and political candidates.

“It feels kind of too little, too late,” Bolden said. “Facebook has a lot of work it needs to do on its own end to sort out how it’s approaching engagement with elections and politics on its own platform before it starts reaching out and giving funding to other organizations.”

While Facebook’s role in elections is concerning, it can’t stop the county Board of Elections from doing its job, Czarny said. And without enough funding coming from the state or federal government to cover the increased expenses related to absentee balloting, it didn’t have many other options.

“A drowning man looks for any branch he can find,” Czarny said. “That’s pretty much where we’re at, especially with the federal government abdicating their responsibility in providing money to local governments and election security.”

$280,000 alone won’t make or break the board’s ability to administer elections in Onondaga County, but it will help, Czarny said. 

He added that the board would never accept a grant that came with conditions dictating how it could be spent. 

“We would never take those terms,” Czarny said. “But we’ll take the money.”

Published on October 14, 2020 at 1:21 am

Contact Chris: cjhippen@syr.edu