When Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg donated $400m (€338m) to help fund US election offices as they scrambled to deal with the coronavirus pandemic late last summer, he said he hoped he would never have to do it again.

Republican legislatures are granting him that wish.

At least eight GOP-controlled states have passed bans on donations to election offices this year as Republicans try to block outside funding of voting operations.

The legislation often comes as part of Republican packages that also put new limits on how voters can cast ballots and impose new requirements on county or city-based election officials.

The response is spurred by anger and suspicion on the right that Mr Zuckerberg’s money benefited Democrats in 2020.

Conservatives have long accused the tech mogul’s social media platform of censoring right-wing voices as part of its campaign against misinformation.

Zuckerberg’s money was largely distributed through a nonpartisan foundation that had liberal roots. Conservative groups cite analyses that the money went disproportionately to Democratic-leaning counties in key states such as Florida and Pennsylvania.

“People saw that, and looked around, and they were increasingly concerned about why would you have a billionaire funding our elections through the backdoor,” said Jessica Anderson, executive director of the conservative group Heritage Action, which has pushed the bans in several states.

But many election officials say that effort is short-sighted and fueled by paranoia.

Election offices, they argue, are chronically underfunded and now cannot benefit from donations that still flow to so many other branches of government, including police, schools and libraries.

Furthermore, they say there is no sign of favoritism in the distribution of the grants from Mr Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan.

Elections are more expensive in populous urban areas, and especially more so last year, when states scrambled to shift to mail voting to deal with the pandemic.

Metro areas had to buy expensive equipment to open and sort mail ballots, a task that smaller, more GOP-leaning counties could do by hand or with less gear.