Banning Zuckerbucks is not about Trump

Louisiana is the latest state to restrict private financing of elections, after voters supported a constitutional amendment on Saturday, 73% to 27%. Grants to election administrators are often called Zuckerbucks, after the millions paid out in them. Facebook Impresario Mark Zuckerberg got involved in the 2020 pandemic vote. For Donald Trump, it was a case of election rigging.

But Mr. Zuckerberg’s money is unlikely to have played a role in the outcome, and that’s exactly what a new academic study circulating among election analysts argues. “While Democratic-leaning counties were significantly more likely to request a subsidy, we find that these subsidies did not have a notable effect on the presidential election,” they write. Apoorva Lal And Daniel Thompsonthe latter being a professor of political science at the University of California at Los Angeles.