Mark Zuckerberg: I’m concerned that our country’s election infrastructure faces many new challenges this year because of the Covid pandemic!
I’m concerned that our country’s election infrastructure faces many new challenges this year because of the Covid pandemic. There will be historic levels of voting by mail, and increased need for poll workers and equipment to support contact-free voting. Election officials across the country are working hard to ensure that everyone can vote and every vote can be counted — and we want to help make sure they have the resources they need to do this.
Priscilla and I are personally supporting two non-partisan organizations that are working to make sure every voter’s voice can be heard this November. We are committing $250 million to the Center for Tech and Civic Life to provide funding for local counties to have the staffing, training, and equipment they need. This will go towards recruiting poll workers (including hazard pay and training), renting polling places, buying PPE for poll workers, providing temporary staffing, supporting drive-through voting, and more. We are committing another $50 million to The Center for Election Innovation & Research that will go to Secretary of State offices across the country — in both red and blue states — that are working to ensure states’ electoral systems are secure and voters are informed.
This is in addition to the work that Facebook is doing to run the largest voting registration campaign in American history — with a goal of helping more than 4 million people register to vote and providing authoritative information about topics like how to vote by mail in each state.
Voting is the ultimate way we hold our leaders accountable and make sure our country is heading in the direction we want. It is critical for our democracy that we all have confidence in the integrity and legitimacy of our elections, and that means having confidence that our country has the infrastructure to make sure every voter can make their voice heard. I’m grateful to everyone doing your part to respond to this year’s unprecedented challenges and I’m proud to support you in your work.