Douglas County Awarded $50,000 Grant From Mark Zuckerberg’s NonProfit For Election Security

The republican stronghold of Douglas County has been awarded a $50,000 grant from the Center for Technology and Civic Life (CTCL) for election support and security needs ahead of the general election in November. After CTCL donated and directed ~$400 million in “Zuckerbucks” into the 2020 election to support county election offices in primarily blue districts, 28 legislatures have banned the practice of taking nonprofit money to run elections.

The grant was uncovered through an open-records request submitted by Silver State Times. According to the report, Douglas County Grants Administrator Debbie Swickard applied for the grant on August 19, stating:

“As a rural County with limited funding a grant award will help us fill the gaps to purchase needed items for security. Being pro-active to mitigate any possible threat we would like to purchase transport carts for mail ballots and bullet proof glass for our election public counter. We are also in need for tables and shelving systems for our processing facility as well as tables for our vote centers. We are extremely grateful for any funding to help us maintain fair and safe elections for Douglas County.”

Within hours, CTCL founder and executive director Tiana Epps-Johnson awarded the grant, writing in an email: “I’m pleased to share that the Center for Tech and Civic Life has reviewed your application for CTCL’s nonpartisan 2024 Rural and Nonmetro Election Infrastructure Grant Program 24A‐47789 and has approved a grant award totaling $50,000.”

According to Silver State Times, acceptance of the grant needed to be approved by the Douglas County Board of Commissioners.

The CTCL Agreement states that “the grant funds must be used exclusively for the public purpose of planning and operationalizing reliable and secure election administration in Douglas County, Nevada in 2024.”

The Silver State Times sent a FOIA Request to Douglas County asking for copies of “all email correspondence with the Center for Tech and Civic Life, including all emails from the domain @techandciviclife.org, and any applications filed for grant funding with the Center for Tech and Civic Life.”

Applications for grants with CTCL opened on Aug. 2 and were available to eligible election offices in 19 states—Alaska, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Vermont, Washington, and Wyoming—as well as the U.S. territories.

During yesterday’s board meeting, the grant did not appear on the agenda. We contacted Commissioner Danny Tarkanian and he confirmed that the grant has not come before the board or has been brought to his attention.

As reported by The Globe, a deep and wide exposé by The Federalist highlights the partisanship and radical roots of the nonprofit:

Our social media research shows that CTCL grew from the seeds planted in the fever swamp of leftist election activism known as “RootsCamp 2012.” Since then, CTCL leaders have universally allied themselves with far-left causes such as critical race theory, critical legal theory, and the “defund the police” movement, and have publicly and repeatedly slandered conservatives — and even middle-of-the-road liberals — as irredeemable, dyed-in-the-wool “fascists.

During most of 2020 and 2021, CTCL founder and director Epps-Johnson consistently aligned with far-left partisan principles and personalities. Even subtle digital endorsements such as these are enough to make one wonder just how “nonpartisan” Epps-Johnson could be while presiding over the injection of $350 million of CTCL’s strings-attached, private election funding.

Whitney Quesenbery, Director of CTCL and co-founder of the Center for Civic Design, tweeted the following meme on Election Day in 2020:

Homage to Woody and Pete https://t.co/liUPSaeYQU

— Whitney Quesenbery (@whitneyq) November 6, 2020

The Globe will continue to follow this story and has submitted open records requests regarding grants and communications with CTCL in Washoe County and Clark  County.