House Reps Seek to Stop Private Funding of Politically-Biased Election Administration Programs

Miss Hemingway I want to start with you in the fall of 2020 the center for Tech and Civil Life gave $6.3 million collectively to the Wisconsin cities of rine Green Bay Madison Milwaukee and Kenosha correct I actually have the number slightly higher it was you know 10 point over 10 million I think to Wisconsin proper and I think maybe it was that amount in the fall of 2020 but as much as 8 and a half million overall so we we'll agree that it's a lot of money now these cities are supposed to spend the CT's Grant funds on things like personal protective equipment and pole workers is that what it was for and that's particularly how it was sold to the general public it was for worker recruitment drive-through recruiting nonpartisan voter education but that's not where all the money went in ctcl it was spent on other things instead so did they give it to outside liberal groups or Democratic get out the vote efforts they actually did and for absentee ballot curing initiatives yes and again in a disproportionate fashion and and did they did they hire ctcl recommended staffers in into County offices yes and so in cities like Green Bay Wisconsin isn't it right that they Outsource the election duties to outside private liberal groups yes but Wisconsin law says that elections are run by clerks and other government officials right very clear yeah and so under ctl's Grant terms that Outsourcing wasn't allowed right it should not have been and ctcl needed to get written permission for a city like Green Bay to do this is that correct yes yes did ctcl get permission to that you know in there or any other jurisdiction I don't believe we have evidence that they did I don't think there's any evidence they did so ctcl approves these plans in writing and we have an email from the then chief of stat of the Green Bay mayor telling ctcl that she would do whatever ctcl recommended is that accurate yes and what did ctcl end up recommending scaling up the voting process by mail yes and even recommending election staffers yep stay on the topic of ctl's recommending experienced election staffers in Green Bay in Green Bay ctcl recommended an election staffer from New York is that accurate he was yes but in Northeast Wisconsin it's a pretty big place uh why didn't ctcl have anyone in mind with experience in the state of Wisconsin why do you think they brought someone in from the state of New York I don't know but he had access to he he asked for and received access to quite a bit of privileged information so so ctcl recommends a New York election staffer to come to Wisconsin in Green Bay to help run the election and what role did other ctac staffers play did they manage the vote by mail process with updates on absentee ballots did they send out return and collect absentee ballots yes did they supervise the counting of ballots Yes again in Democrat areas in the in the city of Green Bay did they help voters cure absentee ballots and at least one staffer had access to the voting machines before election day and was running the voting Counting operation on Election night correct yes and ctcl recommended staffers in some instances actually re replaced nonpartisan election workers is that accurate drove them out yes that's absolutely insane and so when we're talking about these private funds coming in I think it's incredibly appropriate for us to dig in and understand what they did and it's the reason that I think it's so essential we passed my legislation that would actually ban Zucker bucks it would ban these private funds from coming in because when you see what these funds were used for it does not instill confidence in the elections process and so let me let me jump over to you Mr Flanders uh if I can I want to go to the 2022 rine Wisconsin use of their Zucker bucks funding for the illegal voting van how did this work in practice did it stop in front of specific locations did it have a partisan bias yeah that's right the uh the city determined where the locations of the vanwood park would be uh and there were 22 locations that had actually ultimately parked in throughout the uh August primary and when we did an analysis looking at where those were located they were uh more likely to be located in Democratic leaning areas than a republican leaning area has ever seen so they they took the voting van that was labeled as a clerk's office that looks like a food truck and specifically drove it to democratic leaning areas of the city is that accurate that is accurate and did they did they match that and equally go to Republican leaning jurisdictions they not they were more likely to go to democratic leaning areas so they utilized the funds to drive forward a partisan agenda and is that illegal in the state of Wisconsin that is illegal under state law yes sir and the judge ruled that it was illegal correct correct and now since 2020 I'm let me step out a little bit bigger picture in since 2020 27 states have banned Zucker bcks is that correct yes but in the state of Wisconsin governor iers actually vetoed the ban of Zucker bucks not once but twice is that correct is correct and so this could all happen again in the state of Wisconsin this election cycle is that accurate that is correct that's the problem