The Georgia Senate passed a bill on Thursday that seeks to prohibit local election offices from working around state law to use any kind of private funding to conduct elections.
Known as SB 222, the measure stipulates that all “costs and expenses related to conducting primaries, elections, runoffs, or other undertakings authorized or required by [state law] shall be paid from lawfully appropriated public funds.”
“[N]o county or municipal government, government employee, or election official shall solicit, take, or otherwise accept from any person a contribution, donation, service, or anything else of value for the purpose of conducting primaries or elections or in support of performing his or her duties under this chapter,” the measure reads. If signed into law, any local government or election official who accepted such funds prior to the law’s implementation would be required to return the gift “to the entity which provided such thing of value within 14 days.”
The final vote fell along party lines, with 33 Republicans supporting and 23 Democrats opposing the measure.
The bill was introduced after DeKalb County, a Democrat stronghold, recently announced it had been selected to join the U.S. Alliance for Election Excellence after the county’s commissioners accepted a $2 million grant from the Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL). As The Federalist reported, the Alliance is an $80 million venture launched last year by left-wing nonprofits to “systematically influence every aspect of election administration” and advance Democrat-backed voting policies in local election offices.
While Georgia Republicans passed a law
