Established Fact
The Office of Special Counsel (OSC), led by former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman and authorized by the Wisconsin State Assembly, formally concluded in its Second Interim Investigative Report (March 1, 2022) that CTCL’s $8,800,000 grant program with the Zuckerberg 5 — Milwaukee, Madison, Racine, Kenosha, and Green Bay — “facially violates Wisconsin law prohibiting election bribery” under Wis. Stat. § 12.11, which prohibits giving anything of value to cause an election official to perform their duties. The grants were conditioned on recipient cities implementing election administration practices specified in the Wisconsin Safe Voting Plan, including expanded absentee voting, voter outreach programs, poll worker recruitment, and ballot curing operations; CTCL reserved the right to claw back funds from any city that failed to comply.<sup>,</sup> The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty (WILL), conducting a comprehensive analysis through open records requests to all 200+ grant recipient municipalities, found that areas receiving CTCL grants saw a statistically significant increase in turnout for Democrats, estimating a potential electoral impact of more than 8,000 additional votes in the direction of Biden statewide, while the corresponding effect on Republican turnout did not reach statistical significance. The Zuckerberg 5 received approximately 86% of all CTCL funds distributed in Wisconsin despite representing five municipalities out of the more than 216 that received any CTCL funding; per-voter funding among the five largest cities ranged from $53.41 per 2016 voter in Racine to $0.00 in Oshkosh.
Citations
Office of Special Counsel (Michael Gableman), Second Interim Investigative Report on the Apparatus & Procedures of the Wisconsin Elections System, delivered to the Wisconsin State Assembly, March 1, 2022. Chapter 1 heading: “The Center for Tech and Civic Life’s $8,800,000 Zuckerberg Plan Grant with the Cities of Milwaukee, Madison, Racine, Kenosha and Green Bay (the Zuckerberg 5 Cities) Facially Violates Wisconsin Law Prohibiting Election Bribery.” Introduction, p. 7–8: “The Center for Tech and Civic Life’s $8,800,000 Zuckerberg Plan Grants being run in the Cities of Milwaukee, Madison, Racine, Kenosha and Green Bay constituting Election Bribery Under Wis. Stat. § 12.11.” Grant conditions quoted from the agreement: “The grant funds must be used exclusively for the public purpose of planning and operationalizing safe and secure election administration in the City of in accordance with the Wisconsin Safe Voting Plan 2020.” Note: This is the OSC’s legal analysis; all court challenges to the CTCL grants were dismissed as lawful. https://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/madison.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/6/49/64989810-acbc-5ce7-bdc1-f56d37e7c923/621e4cdc386e7.pdf.pdf
Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (Will Flanders, PhD; Kyle Koenen; Cori Petersen), “Finger on the Scale: Examining Private Funding of Elections in Wisconsin” (June 2021). Based on open records requests to 257 communities; records received from 196 municipalities totaling $10.3 million in CTCL funding statewide. Key findings: “The largest five cities in the state (Milwaukee, Madison, Green Bay, Kenosha, and Racine) received nearly 86% of all CTCL grant funds in Wisconsin.” Per-voter funding table (Table 3): Racine $53.41/voter; Oshkosh $0.00/voter. Statistical analysis (p. 15): “For President Biden there was a statistically significant increase in turnout in cities that received CTCL grants…. Given the number of municipalities in the state that received grants, this a potential electoral impact of more than 8,000 votes in the direction of Biden.” The effect on Trump turnout “did not reach traditional levels of statistical significance.” Note: WILL characterizes the impact as “potential” and “correlated with” CTCL funding, not causally attributed; WILL also explicitly noted the grants did not result in fraudulent votes. https://will-law.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/WillLawFINGER-ON-THE-SCALE.6.pdf