NONPARTISAN?

California Awards $35 Million Mail Voting Contract to Firm That’s ‘Proud to Be a Part of Team Biden’: Report

SKDKnickerbocker’s CEO once ran Chuck Schumer’s campaign.

California has awarded a $35 million contract for a campaign promoting voting by mail to a consulting firm that describes itself as “proud to be a part of Team Biden” on its website, according to documents obtained by The Sacramento Bee. SKDKnickerbocker won the contract from among three finalists to develop messaging and media for the state’s Vote Safe campaign, which will encourage voting by mail due to the coronavirus pandemic, on Aug. 13, following an expedited approval process. SKDKnickerbocker’s CEO, Josh Isay, ran Sen. Chuck Schumer’s (D-NY) 1998 campaign, the Bee reports. The website’s message is reportedly meant in support, not to communicate that the company is an official arm of former Vice President Joe Biden’s campaign. Heather Wilson, the firm’s managing director, said in a statement, “As a public affairs firm, a great deal of our work (including this Vote Safe campaign) is nonpartisan.” The California secretary of state’s office echoed the statement. Voting by mail, long a nonpartisan issue, has taken on renewed significance in 2020 as President Donald Trump wages a disinformation war against it, asserting without evidence that the practice will be subject to widespread fraud.