In 2020, a group funded by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife gave $332 million to local governments to run the presidential election amid a global pandemic, prompting a Republican backlash that led to more than two dozen states banning or limiting private funding for elections.
The Center for Tech and Civic Life is again awarding grants this fall — but in much smaller amounts. The $2.5 million it plans to give to small and midsize communities in as many as 19 states totals less than 1 percent of what it spent in 2020. The grants will have nowhere near the nationwide effect they did in the last presidential election but could nonetheless spark controversy. . . .
But election costs remain daunting, and they can be particularly challenging for cash-strapped rural communities, said Tiana Epps-Johnson, the center’s founder and executive director.