February 2, 2021 5:00 AM
A rapidly growing $800 million dark money network helped anonymous donors pour a record amount of money into voter registration groups focused on increasing Democratic Party turnout ahead of the 2020 election.
The Tides Foundation, an organization that allows left-wing donors to fund political activism anonymously, raised over $800 million across its nonprofit network in 2019, a dramatic rise over previous figures.
Much of that money went to "Get Out the Vote" (GOTV) campaigns in the 2020 election cycle, including the Voter Registration Project, Rock the Vote, and the Voter Participation Center, which exploit IRS nonprofit rules to register new voters in Democratic-leaning areas that helped deliver key battleground states to President Joe Biden. The IRS considers voter registration a "charitable" activity for 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) nonprofits, provided it isn’t explicitly partisan.