A relatively new nonprofit that orchestrated the distribution of grants to county election offices all across Pennsylvania in the runup to the 2020 presidential vote has recently made donations to Democratic-aligned political action committees, further undercutting the organization’s own claims it is nonpartisan.
The revelations shed more light on a nonprofit that, while launched in the Trump era, has remained active and has hosted voter registration parties in Bucks County in advance of Tuesday’s special election for House District 140. Those parties have included live bands with giveaways like free coffee and funnel cakes, and “amazing prizes like couches and coolers!”
According to its website, “The Voter Project is a non-partisan, non-profit organization dedicated to ensuring all Pennsylvania voters can cast a ballot in a safe, secure, and convenient way.” The project is organized as a 501(c)4, meaning it is a nonprofit, but it can engage in certain activities that a 501(c)3 could not.
The Voter Project’s disclosures with the IRS show a $35,000 donation to Agenda PAC in late October, 2022. It was the second largest donation Agenda PAC received in the federal reporting cycle from 2021-22, representing about fifteen percent of Agenda PACs total fundraising haul in that same period.
Agenda PAC, meanwhile, spent between $9,000 to $11,500 on Youtube ads promoting the Democratic slates of candidates in the 2023 school board races in Pennridge and Central Bucks, according to Youtube’s library of political advertisements purchased on its platform.
In at least two of those Youtube ads, the narrator chastises the Central Bucks School Board, only to end with a graphic that promotes the slate of candidates in Pennridge, offering no explanation as to why the CBSD’s actions should influence the Pennridge races.
Agenda PAC also spent $100,000 in support of Sen. John Fetterman’s campaign.
Agenda PAC has come under recent scrutiny after a Daily Caller article revealed the PAC hasn’t filed any campaign finance reports for 2023.
The Voter Project, meanwhile, has recently become its own 501(c)4, but started off as a project of the Keystone Research Center, a left-of-center Harrisburg think tank.
The Voter Project and its board president, Kevin Mack, were instrumental in distributing election grants to counties in the runup to the 2020 by a Chicago-based nonprofit, the Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL).
After Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan gave $350 million to the CTCL in September of 2020, Republicans alleged the project was a Trojan Horse to increase turnout in heavily Democratic districts and dubbed the entire project “Zuckerbucks.”
A Broad + Liberty analysis from 2021 showed the grants distributed in Pennsylvania that year were in fact heavily skewed towards “blue” voting counties like Philadelphia, Allegheny, Delaware, and Centre.
Although the CTCL never responded to any inquiries from Broad + Liberty, it has generally countered these claims by saying that after the Zuckerberg grants were received, the CTCL transitioned the grants from invitation only to an open call. Therefore, CTCL has argued that Republican-leaning counties that received small awards nevertheless largely received 100 percent of their grant request.
While that may be true, it is also true that many of the Democratic counties in Pennsylvania that received large awards were given those grants prior to the open call — a time when “red” counties had no means at all of applying for or receiving the grants.
Before the “open call” portion of the granting process, The Voter Project and the CTCL worked exclusively with blue counties for grant awards, with the lone exception of Republican-leaning Bucks County. In that instance, then-Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar personally reached out to Bucks County commissioners to see if they would be interested in taking a grant. Boockvar has never explained why she was authorized to reach out to Bucks County to make the invitation, or why Bucks County was chosen at a time when other counties were shut out.
Months after the 2020 election, Mack, whose main job is as a partner for a political-mail consulting agency in Washington D.C., wrote on his corporate biography page that he had “served as Lead Strategist for The Voter Project in Pennsylvania which was instrumental in signing up over 3.2 million people to vote by mail and leading the soft-side effort to win the swing state in 2020,” (emphasis added).
Mack’s employment with the D.C.-based firm Deliver Strategies has also played a prominent role in how The Voter Project has spent its money. According to the most recent IRS 990 form for The Voter Project, it spent $4.3 million with Deliver Strategies.
On the same form, the nonprofit addressed any potential ethical concerns by saying, “This was an arms-length vendor relationship and The Voter Project relied on outside individuals and organizations to advise on overall spending, budgets and fees for services.”
Mack’s partner at Deliver Strategies, Fiona Conroy, is a director at a 501(c)4 political nonprofit called Project Keystone, which is a polling consortium for Democratic candidates and causes.
In addition to giving the $35,000 to Agenda PAC, The Voter Project has also given grants to two D.C.-based organizations, Pennsylvania Progress, and Pennsylvania Forward. Those two political nonprofits share the same principal officer and address. While Pennsylvania Progress’ mission statement is to “PROVIDE NONPARTISAN VOTE BY MAIL EDUCATION IN PENNSYLVANIA” the mission statement for Pennsylvania Forward is “TO ADVOCATE FOR PROGRESSIVE POLICIES IN PENNSYLVANIA[.]”
The Voter Project’s 990 does not indicate any grants to any organizations that could arguably be characterized as right of center.
Deliver Strategies no longer publishes work biographies of its employees, nor of its extensive client list, which is exclusively Democratic candidates and left-of-center organizations, such as unions.
Mack did not return a request for comment on donations made by The Voter Project.
Update: The first published version of this article noted that State Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta was the chair of Agenda PAC. Kenyatta did serve in that role, but left the PAC in 2023, according to emails shared with Broad + Liberty after publication.
Todd Shepherd is Broad + Liberty’s chief investigative reporter. Send him tips at tshepherd@broadandliberty.com, or use his encrypted email at shepherdreports@protonmail.com. @shepherdreports
Well to counter these outside PAC’s that lean toward Democrats, the PA State Legislature Passed Act. 88, the Election Integrity Protection Grant Act in 2022. $45 million dollars is available to all 67 Counties of the Commonwealth to apply for grants proportionally distributed to each county, based on the total number of registered voters of all Parties or non-Parties (Independents or 3rd Parties). But they have to apply for those grants every year by August 15th and agree not to accept any money from these outside groups. In 2022 all but 4 Counties applied for those Election Protection Integrity Grants. The four counties resisted applying for those grants because they didn’t want to comply with the 3 criteria necessary for them to receive that grant money. Each county has to agree to keep their Vote County Operation open starting when the Polls close on Election Day until the Count is completed. And after 45 and 90 days reporting back to the Department of State, Board of Elections on how they spent the money. Counties, controlled by Republicans, balked at the “burdensome regulations” and “government overreach” in order to comply with the requirements to obtain the grants. Some of the Counties are small and resent the requirements of keeping vote tabulations open 24-7 even though the grant money from this legislation can be used for hiring temporary workers, paying over time costs, buying more voting machines, ballot opening machines to open mail in ballots faster, and high speed scanners, paper, postage, printing costs, security alarms, CCTV Cameras and security guards to protect the storage and tabulation operations.
But Republicans don’t believe in democracy anymore. They don’t want to make it easier to vote, want to suppress the vote, purge the Voter Registration Rolls, get rid of no excuse Mail In Ballots, block pre-canvassing of Mail In and Absentee Ballots before Election Day that delays deciding the outcome of the Election. Any way to suppress the vote and turnout and impinge on the integrity of the vote by ordering recounts, audits, “forensic audits,” and lawsuits perpetuating the “Big Lie” the their was “massive Voter Fraud and Election Fraud,” in 2020, they will. They suffer from the “Vince Lombardi Syndrome of Politics,” “Winning isn’t everything, it is the only thing.” If they can’t win by cheating at the Ballot Box, they will resort to any and all methods including violence to support their dear leader Trump to win.
Thank you, Paul. Your BS rationalization as to why all of the far left cheating taxes and campaign finance statements required by law and those completely lacking any integrity at all had me re re reading your comments.
Republicans do suck. But I love your comments about them cheating and suppressing votes… in an article about the rampant cheating by Democrats that has so permeated the democratic party, it touches all levels of government.
As a Democratic Committee person in Bucks County, you must have a difficult time talking out both sides of your mouth and rationalizing why this behavior is OK.
Everyone should be ashamed of the political activities of both parties. Don’t get down in the mud with them to defend them. They don’t care about you.
Democrats use lawfare to keep RFK Jr. off the ballot and deny him Secret Service protection – as they lecture us about “democracy”.
Pennsylvania is lost for a generation if not forever.
“Can’t see the forest for the trees” is used when describing a person who cannot see a situation they are in as it truly is, instead they get lost in the details of it, and lose perspective on the bigger issue. In other words, one who gets blinded by a situation they are fully involved in. Broad + Liberty can’t see the forest and still pretend elections have fair processes leading up to the vote, a fair count of eligible voters who cast a ballot (including such aspects as electoral fraud or voter suppression), and acceptance of election results by all parties. It is not Trump’s fault people do not believe in free and fair elections. Trump said: “fake news” and I mocked him for it. But many of the people who watched the 2020 count stop in multiple swing states, at the same time, are the same people who asked “Why aren’t these masks necessary for BLM protestors in huge crowds? Are these illogical restaurant Covid policies and 6 feet distance stickers everywhere pure BS?” Turns out, via sworn Fauci testimony, they were. This B+L article is about 4.5 years too late. Subsequently, we have watched Doug Mastriano get nominated with Oligarch money and efforts. They did the same thing getting Trump back up in the polls to secure the R nomination. Neocon Nikki Haley is their insurance policy in case Biden won’t go away and lives thru the election. The forest is the overwhelming efforts in U.S. government synced with Big Tech to literally shape and own your “cognitive infrastructure.” Murthy v. Missouri (originally filed as Missouri v. Biden). Whatever happened to that case B+L? Simultaneously millions of children are being indoctrinated via SEL in public schools which have substituted the accumulation of historical and political knowledge for the expression of historical and political grievances. Public school education has become a weapon. One of the recommended surveillance tools being offered to public school administrators: “a holistic view of online activity across search engines, social media, email and web apps,” so an artificial-intelligence engine would perform “real-time assessments” to “flag online behaviors that indicate emotional distress.” Orwellian technology is being used to monitor and track “progress” on adjusting children’s attitudes, too. That data is being compiled and saved forever under the label of “emotional intelligence.” Big-Brother-Gov. technology used to determine whether further “interventions” are needed to coerce the child into holding the desired attitudes, values, and beliefs about the issue in question. Yes, I agree. PA is lost for a generation.
“PENNSYLVANIA THE VOTER FRAUD STATE” will all of that fit on our vehicle license plates?