Media Hits
AP Quotes Scott Walter on Nonprofit Funding of Elections
AP story goes “viral.”
CRC President Scott Walter was quoted extensively in an AP news story that hit the wires on September 16, 2020. The story has since been republished by hundreds if not thousands of news outlets from coast to coast, new media and old media, local and national, and everything in between. At present, a Google search of the exact title is returning more than 24,000 results. For a list of a few of the media outlets, see the bottom of this post.
Here are selections from “‘Not Plan A’: Charities Are Stepping Up to Pay for Elections,” Nicholas Riccardi, Associated Press:
As Congress balks, well-funded nonprofits are donating hundreds of millions of dollars to help state and local officials run elections during the pandemic — a sudden infusion of private cash in what was once considered a core government function.
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, earlier this month announced they will donate $300 million to two nonpartisan nonprofits. The groups, the Center for Tech and Civic Life [CTCL] and Center for Election Innovation and Research, will funnel the money to local officials working “to ensure that everyone can vote and every vote can be counted,” Zuckerberg said in announcing the donation.
. . .
Conservatives note the Democratic origins of CTCL and that its donations have predominantly been in areas where Democrats depend on votes. The group has announced an upcoming series of grants to rural areas but hasn’t provided specifics.
“I cannot believe people of such partisanship will put their partisanship aside while taking hundreds of millions of dollars and distributing it to election offices,” said Scott Walter, head of the conservative Capital Research Center, which monitors nonprofits.
Still, Walter acknowledged, conservative-leaning nonprofits — and the GOP Senate — have not stepped in to help elections officials.
“Honestly, I wish the right would do it, not only so the election would be more balanced but so we could have an honest debate about whether (charities) should do this,” Walter said.
Selected News Outlets Republishing the AP Story
Broadcast
News Channel ABC 20 (Denver, CO)
25 News (East Peoria, IL)
WNYT Channel 13 (Albany, NY)
WTOP (Washington, DC)
International
Internet
The Greater New Milford Spectrum (Danbury, CT)
Houston Chronicle [paywall]
Raleigh News & Observer (Raleigh, NC) [paywall]
The Washington Post [paywall]
