EXCLUSIVE: The 2020 Election Steal Was Built Before COVID - Joe Hoft
The 2020 Election Steal Was Built Before COVIDZuckerberg money, Alex Padilla’s election model, and the Sacramento County paper trailGuest post by Christine Bish
Editor’s note: This article argues that public records justify a subpoena-backed investigation. It does not claim the public record alone proves fraud or criminal intent.
For years, the election-integrity debate has been trapped inside one word: Dominion. But in California, the bigger story may not begin with the machine. It begins with the road that was built for the machine.
ADVERTISEMENTCalifornia’s mail-ballot election system was not born overnight in 2020. It was built in stages: voter-roll modernization, mailed ballots, vote centers, ballot drop boxes, centralized ballot processing, voting-system replacement, and countywide election administration. Much of that framework was pushed while Alex Padilla was California Secretary of State.
In 2015, Padilla backed the California New Motor Voter Act, expanding automatic voter registration through the DMV. In 2016, he sponsored the Voter’s Choice Act, signed by Governor Jerry Brown, which created a new election model for participating counties: every registered voter receives a ballot in the mail, voters can return ballots by mail or drop box, and neighborhood polling places are replaced or reduced in favor of countywide vote centers.
Sacramento County became one of the early adopters. By 2018, Sacramento voters were already receiving ballots automatically under that model. That matters because COVID did not create California’s mail-ballot infrastructure. COVID activated a system already being built.
In 2019, Padilla pushed counties to retire older voting systems and move into systems approved under California’s newer certification standards. By the time Governor Gavin Newsom ordered ballots mailed to every registered voter for the November 2020 election, the legal and operational structure for mass mailed ballots was already in place. California later made the system permanent.
ADVERTISEMENTThen came the private-money layer.
In 2020, Mark Zuckerberg and Dr. Priscilla Chan committed hundreds of millions of dollars to election-administration efforts across the country. A major portion flowed through the Center for Tech and Civic Life, or CTCL, a private Chicago-based nonprofit that worked with election officials on administration, technology, data, training, and modernization. CTCL was not Congress. It was not California. It was not a county elections office. It was a private nonprofit backed in 2020 by Zuckerberg and Chan money.
That money flowed into local election offices across the country, including California counties. CTCL’s tax records show California election offices received large grants: Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino, Santa Clara, Sacramento, Contra Costa, San Francisco, Kern, Placer, Butte, and others.
But Sacramento County gives us more than a grant list. Sacramento gives us the paper trail.
Sacramento County received $1,349,703 from CTCL. A later public-records request sought the grant records: who requested the money, who approved it, who received it, the signed agreement, spending records, reports back to CTCL, and an itemized list of dates, check numbers, payees, and disbursements. Sacramento County produced records.
Those records show the CTCL grant was not merely used for masks, sanitizer, or basic COVID supplies. The county spending summary listed $531,892.72 for Vote Center Poll Workers, $450,739.50 for Ballot Drop Boxes, $289,281.12 for Non-Partisan Voter Education, $48,758.60 for Polling Place Rentals and Cleaning, and $29,031.06 for Translation of Voting Materials.
ADVERTISEMENTThat is the “aha” moment. The largest category was vote-center poll workers. The second-largest category was ballot drop boxes. Together, those two categories accounted for $982,632.22 — nearly 73% of Sacramento County’s entire CTCL grant.
That is not just COVID safety. That is election operations. That is staffing. That is ballot-return infrastructure. That is voter contact. That is the machinery that makes a mail-ballot election system run.
Sacramento County’s own board materials make the issue even sharper. The records described eligible uses that included voter education and outreach, poll-worker recruitment, drive-through voting equipment, cleaning and sanitization, and additional staff to expedite mail-ballot processing.
That phrase matters: additional staff to expedite mail-ballot processing.
This is the question DOJ should be asking: did private billionaire money, routed through CTCL, help fund the personnel, drop boxes, voter outreach, and ballot-processing capacity used inside California’s mail-ballot election model?
This article does not prove fraud. It proves the need for subpoenas. Investigators should obtain the CTCL applications, agreements, board approvals, disbursement records, vendor invoices, staffing records, voter-education contracts, ballot-drop-box purchases, communications, reports back to CTCL, and compliance certifications.
Sacramento County should be the starting point. The statewide CTCL records show private election money entered California county election offices. Sacramento County shows what that money could fund on the ground: vote-center workers, ballot drop boxes, voter education, polling-place costs, translated materials, and mail-ballot processing support.
California voters were told 2020 required emergency procedures. But the timeline tells a bigger story. Padilla helped build the model. Sacramento tested it. Newsom activated it statewide. Zuckerberg and Chan money helped fund election operations through CTCL. Then California made the system permanent.
That is not a conspiracy theory. That is a sequence. And the sequence deserves a subpoena.
Dominion may have been the vehicle. Alex Padilla helped build the road. And CTCL money helped fund the workers, drop boxes, voter outreach, and ballot-processing infrastructure that made the system run.
Evidence attachment: The supporting exhibit packet contains the CTCL Form 990 references, Sacramento County CPRA production, board approval, grant agreement, spending categories, extension records, and DOJ questions.