Whoa, whoa, whoa!!!! WTF???
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fred Decaro: “What could possibly go wrong?”
[Edited to reflect further research] Reader “Former Resident” sent along a link to this story, exposing a $500,000 grant from Zuckerberg and George Soros to Greenwich to “strengthen” our local election process.
Left-Wing Tech Group Doles Out Millions in Grants in Eerily Familiar Election Scheme
Although about half the states ban private dollars from funding local governing of elections as a response to Mark Zuckerberg’s controversial grants in 2020, a tech-aligned group will dole out individual $500,000 grants to jurisdictions for future elections.
The U.S. Alliance for Election Excellence, established in April, will award individual grants of $500,000 to at least two local jurisdictions out of 10 that the organization accepted into the program.
Greenwich, Connecticut, and Macoupin County, Illinois, each will get $500,000 under the alliance’s membership agreement, according to documents obtained by The Daily Signal through public records requests.
The Alliance for Election Excellence primarily is a project of the Center for Tech and Civic Life, or CTCL, which distributed $350 million in grants from a foundation run by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerber and his wife to local election offices. Critics say that money primarily benefited Democrat turnout in the 2020 election.
The Center for Tech and Civic Life teamed with several other technology and election organizations for the alliance. It includes the Center for Secure and Modern Elections, a project of the liberal New Venture Fund, a nonprofit funded by the “dark money” group Arabella Advisors. Arabella is known for bankrolling various groups on the Left.
“They are just bulking up in the states where this funding is still legal, which thankfully is a dwindling number,” J. Christian Adams, president of the Public Interest Legal Foundation, an election watchdog group, told The Daily Signal in a phone interview.
A letter from the Alliance for Election Excellence to election officials in each of the 10 jurisdictions, dated Dec. 1, says: “I am pleased to inform you that based on and in reliance upon the information and materials provided [that] the Center for Tech and Civic Life (‘CTCL’), a nonprofit organization tax-exempt under Internal Revenue Code (‘IRC’) section 501(c)(3), has decided to award a grant to support the work of Town of Greenwich (‘Grantee’).”
The letter says the amount of the alliance’s grant is $500,000, with the first $150,000 to be paid in December 2022 and another $350,000 to be paid in December 2023. That would place the bulk of the funding just ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
“CTCL’s new effort, camouflaged as the ‘Alliance for Election Excellence,’ still tries to manipulate elections by giving money to government offices. But money always comes with strings, even if CTCL calls them ‘training’ and ‘mentorship,’” Scott Walter, president of the Washington-based Capital Research Center, an investigative think tank, told The Daily Signal in an email.
Walter noted that the Center for Tech and Civic Life is run by Tiana Epps Johnson, who previously helped run the New Organizing Institute, which The Washington Post called “the Democratic Party’s Hogwarts for digital wizardry.”
“The more the Alliance [for Election Excellence] is investigated, the more strings to its money will be found. If Republican operatives tried this scam, the media would rightly blast off their camouflage and expose the partisanship,” Walter told The Daily Signal.
Further evidence that the alliance is both left wing and partisan: Its partners include the Center for Secure and Modern Elections, a pop-up group in the funding empire run by Arabella Advisors, which The Atlantic magazine called a “massive progressive dark-money group,” Walter added.
The Daily Signal’s records requests with the eight other jurisdictions are pending.
Greenwich, among the most affluent cities in the United States, long has been a Republican stronghold in a blue state. However, Democrats have been victorious there in recent election cycles.
UPDATE: As it turns out, it was our own Registrar of Voters Fred Decaro who had our Registrar of Voters apply for this money, and it was he (and Freddie Camillo) who accepted it, as reported back in November. I didn’t notice the story then, and I imagine most residents missed it too; if it hasn’t already, the RTM should start asking questions. For that matter, was this gift ever approved by the RTM?
UPDATE II: More on our new bedmate, Arabella Advisors:
https://www.foxnews.com › politics › arabella-advisors-most-powerful-left-wing-dark-money-network-america-expands-operations
Arabella Advisors: Firm overlooking most powerful left-wing dark money ...
Oct 17, 2022The expansion comes as the Arabella Advisors-managed nexus positions itself as the pinnacle dark money network. It further shows how Democrats have exploited anonymous donations while publicly ...
Meet Arabella Advisors, the Left's Dark-Money Manager - The Atlantic
Nov 2, 2021Courtesy of Arabella Advisors; The Atlantic. November 2, 2021. In a trendy co-working space in Washington, D.C.'s Dupont Circle—where people wear Chucks and fuss about fancy coffee—lies the ...
https://www.theamericanconservative.com › arabella-advisors-democrats-darkest-dark-money
Arabella Advisors: Democrats' Darkest Dark Money - The American ...
May 12, 2021Meet Arabella Advisors, the Beltway's best-kept secret. ... liberal dark money hawks like Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), or even the conservative movement, from 2005 until 2019, ...
https://capitalresearch.org › article › arabella-advisors-democrats-darkest-dark-money
Arabella Advisors: Democrats' Darkest "Dark Money"
May 17, 2021Electing Democrats. The Sixteen Thirty Fund, Arabella's 501 (c) (4) advocacy arm, poured over $57 million between 2019 and 2020 into left-wing PACs that savaged President Trump and aided Joe Biden. That includes $7 million passed to two pro-Biden super PACs: Unite the Country and Victory 2020. Victory 2020 was run and funded by the anti ...
Arabella Advisors Responds on 'Dark Money' Donations - WSJ
Sep 29, 2022We do not fund Demand Justice and we are not a donor, a partisan organization, a counterpart to Leonard Leo's groups or a "dark money" organization. Arabella Advisors is a business dedicated ...
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com › news › arabella-liberal-dark-money-billion-2021-tax-records
Liberal dark money giant rakes in over $1.5 billion from secret donors ...
Nov 16, 2022Arabella Advisors is a consulting firm based in Washington, D.C., that oversees five nonprofit groups bankrolling left-wing causes. The network, which has been dubbed a dark money giant due to its ...
