Kenneth Brown says Wisconsin voters should expect fair and honest elections. Billionaire-funded, third-party groups involved in local elections administration turn that expectation on its head, he said.

Brown, vice chairman of the Republican Party of Racine County, is one of five Racine residents filing a complaint Thursday alleging Mayor Cory Mason and City Clerk Tara Coolidge allowed left-leaning election activists to take over administration of Racine's November election. The Wisconsin Elections Commission also is named as a defendant.

The city of Racine sought funding for communication efforts targeting "voters with criminal records".

"Racine failed to comply with state laws, including obtaining from the (Wisconsin Elections Commission) a prior determination of the legality" of the conditions the third-party groups placed on the city in return for more than $940,000 in "safe, inclusive, and secure" voting grant funding. In doing so, the city usurped the constitutional responsibilities of the local election official and the state elections regulator, according to the complainants.

The complaint is similar to one filed earlier this month on behalf of five Green Bay residents alleging city officials allowed private activist groups to control significant aspects of the 2020 election, including ballot 'curing' and vote counting."

Leading the 'Wi-5'

The Chicago-based Center for Tech and Civic Life handed out more than $8 million in "election safety and security" grants to Wisconsin's five largest and most heavily Democratic cities — Milwaukee, Madison, Green Bay, Kenosha and Racine. CTCL received $350 million from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife to "help" local elections offices administer "safe and secure elections."

As a Wisconsin Spotlight investigation uncovered, CTCL required the "Wisconsin 5" cities to sign contracts that included funding clawback provisions if they failed to meet CTCL's demands. Local elections officials had to work with the center's partner organizations, like the National Vote at Home Institute. Emails show longtime Democratic operative Michael Spitzer-Rubenstein, Wisconsin lead for the institute, was intricately involved in the administration of Green Bay's and Milwaukee's elections, even offering to "cure" or correct absentee ballots.

The complaint claims Racine is where the recruitment of the "Wisconsin 5" began. In late May, CTCL issued a $100,000 grant to the southeast Wisconsin city to "recruit other Wisconsin cities to join the'Wisconsin Safe Voting Plan." Mason, according to the complaint, spoke to his fellow liberal mayors in Madison, Milwaukee, Green Bay and Kenosha about accepting CTCL's grants — with the strings attached. The complaint states:

"CTCL authorized the City of Racine to distribute from the $100,000 grant, $10,000 to each of the four recruited cities (keeping $10,000 for itself), as an incentive for them to participate with Racine in the CTCL conditional grants."

Emails show Mason's office in May 2020 setting up virtual meetings with the four other mayors. CTCL announced the first round of grants to the "Wisconsin 5" on July 7.

The strings

The grants, which included clawback provisions, required the cities to, among other things:
— Hire additional personnel for elections
— Increase existing salaries for staff
— Encourage and Increase Absentee Voting (by mail and early, in-person)
— Provide assistance to help voters comply with absentee ballot requests & certification requirements

The contracts, according to the complaint, also required the cities to employ 'voter navigators' to help voters 'complete their ballots.' The navigators would later be "trained and utilized as election inspectors. Grant-funded election workers would then "enter new voter registrations and assist with election certification tasks." And the cities were instructed to use "paid social media" and "print and radio advertising" to direct voters "to request and complete absentee ballots."

These are initiatives that cannot be done at the direction of the CTCL or other third-party groups, and many of these duties are not the domain of municipal clerks. "Promoting" and "encouraging higher percentages of our electors to vote absentee" violates Wisconsin election law. 'Polling booth on wheels'

Documents show the city of Racine asked for:

— $80,000 "to design and implement a comprehensive voter outreach communications plan, including ads on Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat.

— $5,000 to rent billboards in "key parts of the city to place messages in Spanish to reach Spanish-speaking voters."

— $2,000 for targeted outreach "aimed at city residents with criminal records to encourage them to see if they are not eligible to vote."

— $250,000 to purchase a mobile voting precinct (RV) "so the city can travel around the city to community centers and strategically chosen partner locations. [details in above article]

Ultimately, CTCL did distribute grants to smaller communities. But the funding paled in comparison to the money the five largest Wisconsin communities received. In Green Bay, for instance, the Zuckerberg-funded grants more than quadrupled the city's election budget for all of 2020. The complainants assert this concentrated funding favored "urban demographic group(s) over other non-urban Wisconsin voters in federal elections, putting the integrity of the election process in jeopardy — and violating Complainants' rights to lawful and equal elections."

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The recordings, which were broadcast by Channel 12 on Monday, came as Netanyahu was engaged in a last-ditch attempt to entice Yamina into a right-wing coalition with a rotational power-sharing agreement - ahead of his Tuesday night deadline for government formation.

© Reuters / Corinna Kern / File
Israeli Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked in Tel Aviv, Israel.

"He wants to remain in power. He has a lust for power - he and his wife. They're like tyrants, like dictators. They're not prepared to move aside," said [Ayelet] Shaked, who made the comments at a meeting on Monday with a group of rabbis, one of whom recorded her, according to the Maariv newspaper.

"The only thing he cares about now is his trial. He absolutely does not care about anything else. It's true... all his considerations, his behavior, his comportment - all revolve around his trial," she said, adding that Netanyahu was too "paranoid" and "scared" to ask for a pardon and plea bargain.

"It's true that [Netanyahu] has to go. He has to go," added Shaked, who indicated that Yamina is hoping for a power-sharing deal whereby its leader Naftali Bennett will become prime minister for one-and-a-half years followed by a two-and-half-year Netanyahu premiership.

[...]

"[Netanyahu] understood the situation, that Bennett has an alternative government, and as a result he was prepared to offer Bennett to serve first as premier for a year-and-a-half. He would have taken us to another election," said Shaked, who voiced concern that another round of polls could see the centre-left form a coalition with the help of Arab parties.

Netanyahu can also request a 14-day extension from President Reuven Rivlin, who reportedly favors handing the government-building mandate to other lawmakers. Conversely, Rivlin could send it to the Knesset for a three-week period, after which fifth elections have to be called should no consensus emerge on the country's next ruler.

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