A Wisconsin circuit court judge ruled Wednesday that it was legal for private grants from a group funded by Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg to be sent to the Democratic stronghold of Madison to help it run the 2020 election during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The ruling from Dane County Circuit Judge Stephen Ehlke affirmed an earlier decision by the bipartisan Wisconsin Elections Commission rejecting a complaint challenging the grant money from the Chicago-based Center for Tech and Civic Life as illegal bribery. It is the latest in a series of court rulings, both in Wisconsin and nationally, upholding the legality of the private grant money.

The lawsuit challenging that ruling as it pertained to Madison was brought on behalf of five voters by Erick Kaardal, a former secretary and treasurer for the Republican Party of Minnesota, who is an attorney for the conservative Thomas More Society. Kaardal also filed four nearly identical lawsuits challenging the grant money being awarded in four other heavily Democratic cities: Milwaukee, Racine, Kenosha and Green Bay. Those cases are all pending. The one targeting the grant money in Madison is the first to have a ruling.

President Joe Biden won battleground Wisconsin over Donald Trump by just under 21,000 votes. That victory has been upheld by numerous courts, survived recounts ordered by Trump as well as independent and partisan reviews. Much of the attention from Republicans since Trump’s loss has focused on the propriety of the Zuckerberg-funded grant money.

Ehlke ruled that nothing in Wisconsin law prohibited the acceptance of private funding to help run elections. He also rejected arguments that the money went to communities to help Democrats, noting that the grant money went to any community that applied for it, regardless of how its residents tend to vote.

The Center for Tech and Civic Life gave $8.8 million in grants to Wisconsin’s five largest cities — all Democratic strongholds that voted for Biden over Trump — as part of more than $10 million it gave to over 200 communities statewide. No community that applied for a grant in Wisconsin was turned down.