A group of left-wing activists, accused of playing a role in tilting the 2020 election in favor of Democrats, is now allegedly attempting to sidestep restrictions on privately funding election activities. The Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL) is making headlines for organizing a webinar, reported by The Federalist, where they aim to leverage a hefty $700 million in Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) funding. This move is ostensibly aimed at assisting state and local election officials in boosting their election operations.

While elections are typically funded through state and local budgets with occasional federal support, the CTCL injected a whopping $332 million in private and philanthropic funding into local election offices during the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to The Federalist, these funds paved the way for left-wing activists to gain influence over city and county election offices, using them as a platform to implement preferred practices, voting methods, ballot harvesting efforts, and data-sharing agreements that favored Democratic candidates.

Currently, 27 states have implemented regulations to curb or control the use of private or philanthropic funding for election operations, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. The CTCL, as outlined in The Federalist, is actively promoting its webinar through a regular e-newsletter sent to thousands of election officials within its network. The primary goal of this webinar is to guide officials on accessing grants from FEMA’s Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program, supposedly intended to address future risks related to natural disasters.

CTCL maintains that these grants are designed “to ensure that local jurisdictions can increase resilience of critical services from natural hazards.”

Their reasoning centers on the idea that elections represent a “core element” of government function, making them eligible for critical service government funding. The forthcoming webinar, as outlined by CTCL, will address the application process and “include sample content, as well as inspiration for what the grant funds can be used for.”

Expressing concern, William Doyle, the research director at The Caesar Rodney Election Research Institute in Irving, Texas, specializing in economic history and the private funding of American elections, remarked that CTCL and radicalized Democrats ‘appear to be up to mischief once again.’ He suggested,

Lawmakers should subject their relationship with the BRIC [Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities] grant program, and public election offices in general, to closer scrutiny, with an eye toward eliminating election interference in 2024 by yet another well-funded cabal of ‘election fortifiers.’