Keystone Today

Senate Bill 982, legislation designed to ensure fair, transparent, and accountable elections was signed and passed into law July 11.

One of the most important aspects of SB 982 is that it prohibits election officials from accepting non-public funds such as private donations from ideological groups, corporations, and big tech companies, according to the senate website.

The law “requires election expenses to be funded through appropriations by federal, state or local revenues derived from taxes, fees and other sources of public revenue,” according to the State Senate Appropriations Committee. The legislation also states that state and local governments may not solicit, apply for, enter into a contract with or receive gifts, donations, grants or funding from a nongovernmental entity for election expenses.

"It should be easy to vote and hard to cheat in our elections, but make no mistake, Pennsylvania Democrats and the governor have fought tooth and nail to defeat election reform to make it easy to cheat and hard to prove,” National Chairman of the Election Transparency Initiative and former Virginia Attorney General, Ken Cucinelli, said in a statement. “After it was revealed that Pennsylvania’s own governor corruptly schemed with Democrat operatives working to funnel ‘Zuckerbucks’ to the Keystone State in 2020, he couldn’t veto this bipartisan bill."

"We are grateful to the legislature for advancing this important measure that is sorely needed to help restore voters’ trust in the democratic process and ensure that private and foreign money can’t be selectively funneled into local election offices,” said Cucinelli, according to a report from the Election Transparency Initiative (ETI). “The corrupting influence of big tech oligarchs like Mark Zuckerberg manipulates the official voting apparatus and dilutes the voice and votes of ordinary Pennsylvanians."

During the 2020 election cycle, Mark Zuckerberg distributed hundreds of millions of dollars in grants to nonprofits, According to Capital Research Center. That money was then funneled for partisan voter turnout that was designed to favor Democrats, Cucinelli said.

To fund Democrat voter turnout from government employees, at least $25 million of Zuckerberg's money was funneled to Pennsylvania in the 2020 election, ETI reported.

Emails from Gov. Tom Wolf’s office and the Pennsylvania Department of State invited Democrat-leaning counties to apply for “Zuckerbucks” grants, “appearing to aid the selective process at a time when other counties were unaware, according to a World Tribune report. “No email shows any official in either office providing similar information or assistance to any of the commonwealth’s Republican-leaning counties.”

Research from the Foundation for Government Accountability shows that more than 90% of counties that received “Zuckerbucks” saw a rise in Democrat votes. Democrat counties in the Keystone state received 92% of the funds Zuckerberg spent in Pennsylvania.