One of the 2024 election's biggest battleground states just told Mark Zuckerberg to take a hike. Voters went to the polls on Tuesday and voted to ban so-called "Zuckerbucks" that amounted to private financing of elections. The development was one of the biggest wins for election security and fairness since the 2020 election.  

ALSO SEE: GOP Gets a Big Election Integrity Win in Pennsylvania

Wisconsin voters approved a constitutional amendment Tuesday banning the use of private donations to fund state elections, a move some call a victory for rural areas.

The amendment, called Question 1 on Tuesday's ballot, states private donations cannot be "applied for, accepted, expended, or used in connection with" the conduct of any election. These funds, dubbed “Zuckerbucks” by some after tech billionaire Mark Zuckerberg, often originate from wealthy outsiders.

While the effort to fund election administration might have seemed innocent to some, others pointed out that it was effectively a Democrat turnout operation being run under the guise of helping to expand voting access. It put rural counties (i.e. Republican-leaning) at a disadvantage while urban counties (i.e. Democrat-leaning) received extra staff and voting machines. 

During the 2020 election, the practice was widespread, with the Facebook billionaire dumping around $400 million into the project. While it wasn't illegal nor did it amount to "fraud" in the traditional sense, allowing a private citizen to pump money into election systems in blue areas to increase access and turnout was clearly an underhanded way to influence elections. Sure enough, Democrat turnout during the 2020 election reached staggering levels. 

“I think people wonder ‘why are you dumping hundreds of millions of dollars, not ten dollars, hundreds of millions of dollars into election administration?’” Ennis said. “Part of it was done under the guise of ‘we need to help out places for COVID,’ but I think the real reason is to drive turnout in primarily Democrat-leaning counties.”

These donations often originate from groups with left-leaning interests, according to Ennis.

While cutting off these funds will likely impact the number of staff and voting machines at polling places, Ennis explained it will help voters in rural areas have their voices heard.

“I think it just mostly levels the playing field between the small counties and the big counties,” he said.

As of now, about half the states in the union still allow private donations for election administration. Whether this will lead to others banning the practice isn't known, but it would certainly be a welcome change. There is simply no reason for private donors to be involved in the nuts and bolts of elections. States have a duty to administer elections fairly and of their own accord. No left-wing dark money groups should be involved, and to allow them to be is to call into question the base-level credibility of the process. 

These are the areas Republicans should have been focusing on all along. Things like "Zuckerbucks" and ballot harvesting had far more of an effect on the 2020 election than any possible fraud related to fake ballots. Democrats win by essentially buying elections through monetary saturation. The "Zuckerbucks" project represented the worst of the latter, and it needs to be thoroughly expelled from American elections.

To end, I'll note that Wisconsin voters also approved another amendment stipulating that election officials must be "designated by the state," eliminating the practice of non-sanctioned (i.e. possibly hired) volunteers from participating. Voters in the state obviously had election security on their minds, and they spoke loud and clear: Keep Democrat attempts to improperly influence elections out of our state.