Natural State News

State Rep. Rick Beck said he support the election law aimed at monetary influence passed this spring in Arkansas and that he's hopeful that it prevents outside influences in local elections.

Arkansas House Bill 1866 was signed into law on April 27 and prohibits, as stated in the bill's language, county boards of election in Arkansas from accepting any form of election funding that does not come from a city or incorporated town, the governing authority of the county, the State of Arkansas or the United States Government.

"Why would you leave that door open? That's the way I look at this mechanism. If you truly just want to help out, there's a mechanism to do that right now, you just can't deal directly with the election commission," Beck told Natural State News. 

This law comes after some big donations for the 2020 presidential election. 

The Center for Technology and Civic Life received $350 million from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerburg ahead of the 2020 election and, as detailed by a Got Freedom article, they were mainly distributed grants to counties in swing states. The donations were contingent on each city holding elections according to the CTCL’s specifications.

According to a Capital Research Center report, the Center for Technology and Civic Life gave to nine of the ten counties that shifted toward Democrats in 2020, with an average shift of 13.7%. 

PR Newswire reported that the largest sums granted by CTCL were delivered "overwhelmingly to strongly Democratic areas." 

"You could you could donate it to the county, as long as you within their guidelines and then they could give it to the election commission. But the idea is to create a layer," Beck said.