A bill that would ban the practice of state and local officials accepting private funds to run elections passed a key hurdle on Tuesday.
House Bill 1365, sponsored by House Speaker Philip Gunn, R-Clinton, would prohibit election officials from either soliciting or accepting private funds from any non-governmental source for election-related expenses or voter education, voter outreach or registration.
The bill passed the House Apportionment and Elections Commission on deadline day, with a deadline of February 10 for a floor vote.
The bill’s genesis came after Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Chan Zuckerberg spent $419 million nationally on election administration costs related to the COVID-19 pandemic, such as cleaning supplies and plexiglass screens. Many conservative critics say those funds went to key counties in heavily contested states which had a larger Democrat voter turnout.
The right-leaning non-profit Foundation for Government Accountability said in a report about the Georgia election that 75 percent of counties that received funds from Zuckerberg saw a significant uptick in the number of Democrat votes.
The FGA says that at least $3.7 million was poured into 32 of Mississippi’s 82 counties. More than $3.1 million went to six counties: Benton, DeSoto, Forrest, Hinds, Madison and Washington counties.
Hinds County received the largest share of that money at $1.719 million and that money went to pay for big-screen TVs, subwoofers, writing pens and food for poll workers.
Only one of the biggest recipient counties had a lower number of Democrat votes in 2020 as compared to 2016. Hinds went from 67,594 votes for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 general election to 73,550 votes for President Joe Biden, an increase of 8.8 percent. Madison County’s Democrat totals increased by 20.1 percent from 2016 to 2020, increasing from 20,343 to 24,440.
DeSoto had the biggest increase in Democrat votes, going from 20,591 in 2016 to 28,265, an increase of 37.3 percent.
Forrest County’s Democrat vote totals increased by 17.4 percent, improving from 11,716 in 2016 to 13,755 in 2020. Washington County’s Democrat vote total went from 11,380 in 2016 to 12,503 in 2020, an increase of 9.9 percent.
