On its face, it seems like Senate bill 222, which has now been signed by Gov. Brian Kemp, is an attempt to prevent money from outside the state from being used to sway elections.
However, a careful reading of the bill, now passed as law, shows it does nothing but stymie local elections officials from receiving non-partisan grants to help fund the elections process.
Republicans in the General Assembly were furious to learn that FaceBook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s foundation gave grants to election boards all across the state to ease the strain on elections boards during the pandemic.
The Republicans claim that Zuckerberg was using the money somehow to sway elections and that most of the money was given mainly to Democrat run districts.
Except that contention is not true.
Nearly every county in Georgia applied for Zuckerberg’s grant. Richmond County received a grant, and the money was used to hire poll workers and pay for routine expenses that ended up soaring during the pandemic.
Columbia County also applied for and was offered the grant, but chose not to accept it out of caution because of vague language in the contract, and Columbia County already had funding to properly conduct the election without help.
However, none of the language in the grant could be construed as being a means to rig or alter the results of an election. In fact, part of the agreement in the controversial grant was that each recipient keep meticulous records of how the money was spent or face losing the grant altogether.
Those that pushed for the law also did not take into account that the former Republican governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger, has offered a similar grant, and the biggest recipient of the Schwarzenegger grant in Georgia was Muscogee County, a Democrat stronghold.
So it is not okay for a philanthropist who happens to be Democrat to offer relief funding to local election boards with no strings attached, but perfectly fine for a Republican to do so?
This new law punishes election officials with a felony if they accept a grant from outside of the state but ignores all the dark money that flows through political campaigns.
In terms of the new law, as we Southerners say, this dog don’t hunt.
A grant is totally different from a contribution. It is almost impossible to turn grant funding into “dark money,” but the same cannot be said for campaign contributions and the funding of political action committees.
Real election reform would prevent carpetbaggers like Stacy Abrams from amassing a war chest in campaign funding and funding for her many “nonprofit” organizations from her Hollywood friends, many of whom have never set foot in the state of Georgia.
If we want real election reform, then we need to encourage the governor and general assembly to go to the source of the problem, which is individuals and corporate entities from out-of-state attempting to influence local elections by funding the endless barrage of misleading campaign ads.
