Key figure in voting lawsuits raises alarm about Zuckerberg funding to election managers

Former Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline is sounding the alarm about private funding being pumped into U.S. election management.

"We can't continue to flow private money directly into the management of our elections," he said during an interview on the "John Solomon Reports" podcast. "That's a government function. It's like stuffing the umpire's pocket full of cash before they call the first ball and strike."

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has announced that he and his wife Priscilla Chan are shelling out $400 million to organizations for election-related purposes.

"We are committing $250 million to the Center for Tech and Civic Life to provide funding for local counties to have the staffing, training, and equipment they need," Zuckerberg said in a September Facebook post. "This will go towards recruiting poll workers (including hazard pay and training), renting polling places, buying PPE for poll workers, providing temporary staffing, supporting drive-through voting, and more. We are committing another $50 million to The Center for Election Innovation & Research that will go to Secretary of State offices across the country -- in both red and blue states -- that are working to ensure states' electoral systems are secure and voters are informed."

In October Zuckerberg announced that he and his wife would give another $100 million dollar donation to the Center for Tech and Civic Life.

Kline, who serves as the Director of the Thomas More Society's Amistad Project, which has supported lawsuits related to the Zuckerberg money, said that the federal government allocated $400 million in the CARES Act to assist states with elections amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Mark Zuckerberg is providing nearly as much money to this year's election administration as the federal government," Kline said in a statement included in a Wednesday press release. "The American people have a right to know what has driven him to take this extraordinary action, and where all the money is going," he said.

The press release points out that the CTCL contributions "heavily favor Democratic areas," and that "Though they profess to be nonpartisan in their management of CTCL and the Zuckerberg funds, CTCL's three leaders – Tiana Epps-Johnson, Whitney May, and Donny Bridges – all worked for a stridently progressive organization, the New Organizing Institute, before joining CTCL." 

During the podcast interview Kline stated that "$350 million goes to this CTCL group which then is picking out cities and counties and telling them, we will give you money but you have to run the election our way, the way we tell you to do it."

"Those are two of the key points of authority that anybody who is trying to consolidate power needs to control, and that is the flow of information and how elections are managed," Kline remarked.