Established Fact
Over 94% (42.4 million dollars) of CTCL funds in Georgia went to 17 Biden-won counties. In parallel, Georgia used ERIC to generate “Eligible but Unregistered” (EBU) lists, then transferred those lists to CEIR, which produced targeted mailing and GOTV lists and sent them back to state officials for deployment. The combination of privately funded list-building and state-run outreach targeted at unregistered but demographically favorable voters is functionally indistinguishable from a government-facilitated partisan GOTV program.
Citations
Capital Research Center, Parker Thayer and Hayden Ludwig, “UPDATED: Shining a Light on Zuck Bucks in the 2020 Battleground States” (updated May 28, 2024): “CTCL gave grants to 17 of the 31 counties Biden won in Georgia. Together, these 17 counties received $42.4 million, or over 94 percent of all CTCL funds in the Peach state. CTCL gave grants to 26 of the 128 counties Trump won statewide. But these 26 counties only received $2.6 million from CTCL — less than 6 percent of all grants distributed across Georgia.” Per-capita figures: Clayton ($12.88), DeKalb ($12.59), Douglas ($11.53), Fulton ($10.01); largest Trump-county grant: Early County ($3.42). CRC’s analysis is based on CTCL’s Form 990 IRS disclosures. Total Georgia CTCL distribution: approximately $45 million per CTCL’s disclosed data. Available at: https://capitalresearch.org/article/shining-a-light-on-zuck-bucks-in-key-states/. Note: The “EOG Report” referenced in the passage’s original footnote anchor has not been identified as a publicly accessible document; CRC’s analysis is the verified primary source for the distribution figures
VerityVote, Threats to Election Integrity (Aug. 2022), based on FOIA records obtained from the Georgia Secretary of State’s office: “An email received from a FOIA request submitted to the GA Secretary of State’s office reveals that ERIC is transferring EBU data to CEIR. This is NOT voter registration data but data from people who have chosen not to register to vote. CEIR is creating targeted mailing lists from the EBU data.” The email (attributed to Jenny Lovell, then CEIR research manager) explains “that the data from GA should be sent to ERIC for transfer to CEIR. That transfer process is reversed so GA can download the mailing lists from ERIC.” A separate FOIA-produced document showed the workflow timeline. Available at: https://verityvote.us/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/national-ERIC-data-sharing_VerityVote.pdf. Note: VerityVote is a conservative election-integrity advocacy organization; the underlying FOIA documents (an email and workflow diagram) are government records but have not been published independently. The Bernegger v. ERIC litigation (Waupaca County No. 2023CV000157, aff’d Nov. 27, 2024) is a Wisconsin public-records access case that was dismissed on the ground that ERIC is not subject to Wisconsin’s public records law; it does not contain factual findings regarding the ERIC/CEIR data chain and should not be cited as a source for those facts. See: https://law.justia.com/cases/wisconsin/court-of-appeals/2024/2024ap000168.html .
VerityVote, Threats to Election Integrity, supra fn. 2: “ERIC requires all member states to contact 95% of the unregistered citizens identified in lists called Eligible but Unregistered (EBU).” ERIC member agreement: “At least every 425 days, a member will receive a list of possibly eligible but unregistered voters, EBUs. The state must contact ‘each and every’ person on the list and inform them how to register.” CEIR’s own 2020 Voter Education Grant Program Report confirms Georgia “used CEIR grant funds in both the November general election and January runoff election to encourage voters to apply for a ballot online.” Available at: https://electioninnovation.org/wp-content/uploads/CEIR-2020-Voter-Education-Grant-Program-Report.pdf . The NVRA, 52 U.S.C. § 20507, governs voter list maintenance; critics argue the ERIC EBU mandate goes beyond maintenance into affirmative registration outreach — a legal argument that has not been adjudicated.
Fulton County, GA 2020 General Election Report for Georgia State Election Board, Election Oversight Group, LLC https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UzJ4qX6iBSrFMtkoRnOGIe3q8pzGjkVx/view?usp=drive_link
ERIC/CEIR ‘Eligible but Unregistered’ list generation and transmission to state officials for targeted GOTV outreach (Peter Bernegger v. Electronic Registration Information Center, Inc., Waupaca County, WI, No. 2023CV000157)