Sedgwick County accepts $816,000 for election office despite ties to Facebook fortune
After a lengthy debate over private money in public elections, a slim majority of Sedgwick County commissioners voted Wednesday to accept an $816,000 grant to improve voter access in the Nov. 3 election.
The money at issue is from the Center for Tech and Civic Life, a nonprofit foundation with ties to Facebook billionaire Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla, who donated $250 million to the cause of assisting election offices during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I’ve received voicemails and feedback from several people that were concerned about that, but I don’t know that it diminishes the fact that we can offset the future purchase (of) things that can make our elections run smoother right now by accepting 800 and some thousand dollars,” said Commissioner David Dennis, who joined commissioners Pete Meitzner and Lacey Cruse in voting to accept the grant.
“Yes we do have money in the budget to conduct elections, but if we can do a better job of conducting elections (with the money) I don’t see a problem with that,” Dennis said.
He said he had checked over the grant agreement very carefully and saw “no strings whatsoever” that would affect the outcome of the election or give any advantage to either a political party or their candidates.
Commissioner Jim Howell said he doesn’t think the extra money will affect the outcome either, but he thinks accepting the grant would raise questions among some voters.
“I have received some very concerning e-mails from people and I think rightfully so,” he said. “There’s concerns about who’s influencing elections.”
He said he researched the origin of the grant money and “There was a lot of credit given to Mark Zuckerberg with Facebook.”
Howell was joined in dissent by Commissioner Michael O’Donnell.
“My only concern about this is who’s funding it,” he said. “I think any American should be concerned if Mark Zuckerberg is trying to go around the country giving money to election offices.”
Commissioner Lacey Cruse, who had brought the grant opportunity to the county’s attention, said the grant was vetted by the election commissioner, county management and finance staff.
She also said the commissioners opposing the private-sector grant are the same ones who routinely complain at length about spending taxpayer dollars.
“I feel like not accepting this grant is an act of voter suppression,” she said. “We have a right and we have a duty to ensure that people who want to vote in person can do that safely and securely.
“We have to social distance, we have to wear masks. We have to do these things that are unprecedented now and this will allow us to have shorter wait times and more locations with more machines.”
Howell said the commission has already appropriated money for the election and gotten additional funds from government COVID-impact grants and questioned whether the county needed more.
Howell’s stance on taking the money put him on the opposite side of Election Commissioner Tabitha Lehman, his sister-in-law.
Lehman said she wouldn’t have accepted the grant if there were strings attached and vouched for the non-partisanship of the Center for Tech and Civic Life.
She said her office already has a “long-standing relationship” with the center and in the past has used its software tools for purposes such as predicting turnout and placing polling stations to accommodate the traffic efficiently.
“To me it’s very ,very clear that they do not have any kind of agenda with this,” she said. “They are simply trying to help facilitate this (election). I’ve worked with many people on this board for years. I have absolutely zero (indication) of their own personal political beliefs.”
Lehman said she’s confident she could run the election without the center’s money, but it would allow her to improve the voting process and pay for improvements that she wouldn’t have requested from the county’s pandemic-strained general fund budget.
The grant is expected to pay for:
▪ 100 new touch-screen voting machines —$423,700.
▪ 70 printers that can be placed at polling sites to instantly print ballots if the line for machines gets backed up or there’s a breakdown and poll workers need to switch to paper ballots — $168,750.
▪ Previously approved “hazard pay” of an extra $2 an hour for poll workers risking COVID-19 exposure to work at polling places — $83,000.
▪ Buy secure streetside boxes for people to drop off mail ballots to ensure they don’t get delayed by the Post Office, including security cameras and installation —$19,502.
▪ Space rental for additional equipment storage — $20,000.
▪ Promotion of early voting and ballot drops, including translation of materials into Vietnamese and Spanish —$8,000.
▪ Additional operating supplies — $93,506.
The last day to register to vote in Kansas is Oct. 13.
To find out if you’re registered and where to vote, visit myvoteinfo.voteks.org/VoterView. Voters may register online at https://www.kdor.ks.gov/apps/voterreg/Default.aspx. For assistance, call the county election office at 316-660-7100.
Early in-person voting runs from Oct. 19 - Nov. 2 at locations throughout the county.
Contributing: Chance Swaim of The Eagle
This story was originally published October 7, 2020 at 6:41 PM.
