ATLANTA – The Georgia House voted 100-69 along party lines to approve Senate Bill 222, which would ban local governments from accepting any funding for elections from outside groups except the state or federal governments.
The bill goes back to the Senate for more debate because the House made changes.
A 2021 Georgia law made it illegal for elections officials themselves to accept outside money after Republicans grew alarmed that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg donated more than $400 million to election officials nationwide. Republicans view outside money for election administration as unfairly favoring Democratic counties and improperly influencing the conduct of elections.
But it was widely understood in 2021 that county commissions could still take money from outside groups and pass it on to election administrators. Earlier this year, however, overwhelmingly Democratic DeKalb County accepted $2 million from the U.S. Alliance for Election Excellence to seek improvements and share best practices. The alliance includes the Center for Tech and Civic Life, Zuckerberg’s main funding vehicle from 2020.
That set off a round of condemnations from Republicans that DeKalb had broken the law.
Republican lawmakers originally wrote the bill to force the county to give the money back. House members removed the refund provision. But Democrats Monday pushed back on claims that DeKalb had done anything illegal.
Republicans say any money should be donated to the state and divvied up according to directions from the State Elections Board, which is dominated by Republican appointees. The board in December, however, asked lawmakers to make such rules for accepting and dividing donations.
Democrats, though, said the 2021 law made it more expensive for counties to run elections and that without outside funding, counties may have to raise taxes to pay for the increased expenses.
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