Voters will decide two constitutional amendments passed by the Republican-controlled legislature regarding elections when they go to the polls in April. One of those amendments includes a ban on election officials accepting private grant money. The amendment was sparked by the grants a group largely funded by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg gave to state communities ahead of the 2020 election. Fond du Lac Republican state representative Jerry O’Connor says private funding has no place in elections. “Mark Zuckerberg brought national a couple hundred million dollars into different voting precincts offering support of various sorts. The problem is it only went to left leaning or toss up areas that could determine the outcome of state elections,” O’Connor told WFDL news. Common Cause in Wisconsin director Jay Heck says during the pandemic election clerks statewide were scrambling for resources to conduct safe elections and turned to private foundations when the legislature did not provide adequate funding. “A foundation that provided about $10 million in much needed resources to 100 municipalities all over Wisconsin, and this money was not used for anything other than to hire poll workers, but also to provide basic materials so that people could vote safely, things that were necessary to have safe elections,” Heck told AM 1170s Between the Lines program. A second question seeks to ban anyone other than an election official designated by law from performing any task related to a primary, general election or referendum.
