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Zuckerberg Grant Allowed Outsider to Infiltrate Presidential Election in Wisconsin
MADISON, Wis.—When Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife handed out hundreds of millions of dollars last year for a national safe-voting initiative, the “donation” was heralded as vital support to “protect American elections” and to “bolster democracy during the pandemic.”
But what the grant money really purchased in battleground states such as Wisconsin was infiltration of the November presidential elections by liberal groups and Democratic activists, according to hundreds of pages of emails and other documents obtained by Wisconsin Spotlight.
In the city of Green Bay, which received a total of $1.6 million in grant funding from the Zuckerberg-funded Center for Tech and Civic Life, a “grant mentor” who has worked for several Democratic Party candidates, was given access to boxes of absentee ballots before the election.
Michael Spitzer-Rubenstein, Wisconsin state leader for the National Vote at Home Institute, in many ways became the de facto city elections chief.
The emails show Green Bay’s highly partisan Mayor Eric Genrich, a Democrat, and his staff usurping City Clerk Kris Teske’s authority and letting the Zuckerberg-funded “grant team” take over—a clear violation of Wisconsin election statutes, say election law experts.
And the liberal groups were improperly insinuating themselves into the election system and coordinating with what became known as the “Wisconsin 5,” the state’s five largest communities that split more than $6 million in Zuckerberg money.
The emails expose the dangers of handing over the administrative keys to private “fair election” groups with a clear political agenda.
In final official results in Wisconsin, Democrat nominee Joe Biden defeated President Donald Trump by 49.6% to 48.9% of the vote, flipping a state that Trump won in 2016.
State Rep. Janel Brandtjen, R-Menomonee Falls, who chairs the Wisconsin State Assembly’s Campaigns and Elections Committee, said the Green Bay emails, first obtained by state Rep. Shae Sortwell, R-Two Rivers, through an open records request, was to be front and center Wednesday at a hearing before the elections committee.
“Going forward, if we don’t address them, I think we have a breakdown in Wisconsin’s political system,” Brandtjen said.
Outside Help
In July, the Center for Tech and Civic Life announced it was awarding grants totaling $6.3 million to the state’s five largest cities. Green Bay received nearly $1.1 million, and then picked up another half-million dollars in a supplemental grant.
The money ostensibly was to be used to “support election administration in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.” The “Wisconsin 5,” heavy Democratic strongholds, worked together to secure the funding.
The grants were thanks to the $250 million “gift” from the CEO of Facebook, the social network giant that has silenced conservative speech. Zuckerberg would drop another $100 million on his “safe elections” agenda before the pivotal November presidential election.
It was clear early on that the grant would come with a side of politics.
“I’ve been reading things on Facebook about people complaining where the million [-dollar grant] is coming from. I think it might get political,” Teske, then-Green Bay city clerk, wrote in a July 14 email to Diana Ellenbecker, the city’s finance director and Teske’s boss.
Teske wrote that Celestine Jeffreys, the mayor’s chief of staff, “talked about having advisers from the organization giving the grant who will be ‘helping us’ with the election and I don’t know anything about that.”
Eventually, the advisers would play an extensive role in “helping” administer Green Bay’s election.
“We are really excited to put the funds to work to make sure that every Green Bay resident has the opportunity to vote safely and securely in August and November,” Genrich said in a press release announcing the grant.
The mayor championed the grant and the Green Bay City Council approved the funding—with conditions from the grant provider.
“CTCL said, if you don’t follow our requirements, we get the money back,” said Erick Kaardal, an appellate law attorney representing the Wisconsin Voters Alliance, which challenged the constitutionality of election procedures in Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin following the election. “The city had to report to CTCL how it was spending the grant money, then [CTCL] introduced all of the nonprofits.”