As a Johnson County commissioner in 2020, Mike Brown welcomed the "nice surprise" of Mark Zuckerberg's cash to support the expansion of advance voting.
Brown, who has embraced Donald Trump's Big Lie of election fraud in the 2020 presidential election, is seeking the GOP nomination for secretary of state. And he now opposes the use of grants funded by the Facebook magnate and promises to ban ballot drop boxes on his first day in office. His campaign launched a far-right attack on Republican Secretary of State Scott Schwab, who is seeking reelection as the state's top election official.
Brown has used Zuckerberg's social media platform to falsely claim that Schwab accepted grants from the Center for Tech and Civic Life, a Chicago-based nonprofit financed by a $350 million gift from Zuckerberg. In reality, Schwab allowed local officials to decide whether to apply for private grants during the pandemic-ravaged election cycle.
In an Oct. 8, 2020, county commission meeting, Brown made the motion to accept an $856,245 grant from CTCL after hearing a presentation from election commissioner Connie Schmidt on how the money could be used to help process a massive number of advanced ballots, expand early voting...
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