A blockbuster documentary debuting Tuesday about the 2020 election makes new charges that groups associated with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg spent hundreds of millions to inflate Democratic voter turnout just enough to defeat former President Donald Trump.
Rigged: The Zuckerberg-Funded Plot to Defeat Donald Trump, produced by the pro-Trump Citizens United Productions and movie maker-activist David Bossie, outlines how the so-called “Zuckerbucks” scheme funneled historic levels of spending to mostly Democratic districts for get-out-the-vote efforts. In Wisconsin, for example, 90% of Zuckerberg’s money went to districts won by Biden.
The movie is debuting today at Trump’s Florida resort, Mar-A-Lago. A six-figure ad buy also kicks in Tuesday to promote sales of the documentary on cable outlets. A website has been set up for orders: $4.99 to watch and $19.99 to watch and receive a DVD.
“It was a rigged election. People have to find out what happened,” said Trump in the movie trailer previewed for Washington Secrets.
Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz added, “This was the greatest billionaire assault on election integrity we’ve ever seen.”
While other claims of vote-rigging have been hard to prove, the legal Zuckerberg spending of nearly $420 million in the election (nearly twice what the Democratic Party spent in all of 2019 and 2020) is fully documented in reports.
Trump supporters and critics of the scheme believe it helped juice the pro-Joe Biden vote in states such as Arizona, Wisconsin, and Georgia, where Biden edged Trump by a combined vote of just 43,000.
Several states have moved recently to tighten spending like that from Zuckerberg-backed groups, such as the Center for Tech and Civic Life and the Center for Election Innovation and Research. Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, gave $419 million through their Chan Zuckerberg Initiative to the outlets.
Sold as nonpartisan election funds to help local election boards, much of the funding went to Democratic counties. In Wisconsin, a state-backed investigation found that some $10.3 million from the groups helped boost Democratic votes in the state count that Biden won by 20,686.
The groups spent $45 million in Georgia, where Biden won by 11,779 votes, and $5.1 million in Arizona, where Biden won by 10,457.
In some areas around the country, the Zuckerberg funding pushed per-vote spending by election officials to nearly $5 in Biden-won counties, compared to just over $1 in Trump-won counties, according to a RealClearPolicy report.
“We’ll follow the money and uncover the startling facts behind election 2020,” said Bossie, who hosts and narrates the 40-minute-long Rigged. “In order to answer the question once and for all: What happened? And to ensure it never happens again.”
Concern over the spending has already prompted more than two dozen states to push for bans on outside help for state and federal elections.