Established Fact
The five “Zuckerberg 5” cities — Milwaukee, Madison, Green Bay, Racine, and Kenosha — together requested and received $6,324,527 in CTCL grants in July 2020 to implement the Wisconsin Safe Voting Plan, a document the cities themselves submitted to CTCL specifying drop box locations, staffing increases, poll worker recruitment, and voter outreach programs. The grant agreements required that funds be used “exclusively for the public purpose of planning and operationalizing safe and secure election administration… in accordance with the Wisconsin Safe Voting Plan 2020.” Section 7 of the Green Bay revised grant agreement — representative of the five-city template — expressly provided that “The City of Green Bay shall not reduce or otherwise modify planned municipal spending on 2020 elections, including the budget of the City Clerk of Green Bay (‘the Clerk’) or fail to appropriate or provide previously budgeted funds to the Clerk for the term of this grant. Any amount reduced or not provided in contravention of this paragraph shall be repaid to CTCL up to the total amount of this grant.” The five-city agreements were structured so that all five cities would be required to remit back the entire $6,324,527 if CTCL, “at its sole discretion, determined these cities had not complied with CTCL’s terms.” A separate clawback clause permitted CTCL to “discontinue, modify, withhold part of, or ask for the return of all or part of the grant funds if it determines, in its sole judgement, that (a) any of the above conditions have not been met.” These financial conditions operationally bound the municipalities to CTCL’s prescribed election plan under threat of full repayment.
Citations
Wisconsin Safe Voting Plan 2020, submitted to the Center for Tech and Civic Life by the Mayors of Milwaukee, Madison, Green Bay, Racine, and Kenosha (dated June 15, 2020; approved July 2020): total grant request $6,324,527; plan details drop box placements, staffing increases, poll worker recruitment, and voter outreach by city. https://www.techandciviclife.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Approved-Wisconsin-Safe-Voting-Plan-2020.pdf. Individual city totals: Milwaukee $2,154,500; Madison $1,271,788; Green Bay $1,093,400; Kenosha $862,779; Racine $942,100.
WEC Complaint (Final Draft), ¶55, p. 017 (quoting Green Bay CTCL grant agreement, Section 3): “The grant funds must be used exclusively for the public purpose of planning and operationalizing safe and secure election administration in the City of Green Bay in accordance with the Wisconsin Safe Voting Plan 2020.” https://fox11digital.com/PDFs/WEC-Complaint-FINAL-Draft-4.pdf
The verbatim Section 7 text of the revised Green Bay CTCL grant agreement (revised July 25, 2020; signed July 28, 2020) is reproduced in two independent primary sources: (a) InfluenceWatch, Green Bay CTCL/CSME 2020 Election Emails (compilation of CTCL–Green Bay correspondence), at p. [email dated Jul 25, 2020]: https://www.influencewatch.org/app/uploads/2021/11/green-bay-ctcl-csme-2020-election-emails.pdf ; and (b) WEC Complaint (Final Draft), ¶55, pp. 018–019: https://fox11digital.com/PDFs/WEC-Complaint-FINAL-Draft-4.pdf.
WEC Complaint (Final Draft), ¶39, p. 017–018: “Under the terms of the CTCL conditional grant agreement, the five cities adopting the conditions would be required to remit back to CTCL the entire $6,324,527 if CTCL, at its sole discretion, determined these cities had not complied with CTCL’s terms.” Separate sole-discretion clawback: ¶55, p. 018: “CTCL may discontinue, modify, withhold part of, or ask for the return of all or part of the grant funds if it determines, in its sole judgement, that (a) any of the above conditions have not been met.” https://fox11digital.com/PDFs/WEC-Complaint-FINAL-Draft-4.pdf. See also Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, “Finger on the Scale: Examining Private Funding of Elections in Wisconsin,” at 5 (June 2021) (independently paraphrasing: municipalities “must hold to the ‘Wisconsin Safe Voting Plan’ or ‘CTCL may discontinue, modify, withhold part of, or ask for the return of all or part of the grant funds'”): https://will-law.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/WillLawFINGER-ON-THE-SCALE.6.pdf
The WILL report further documents that with subsequent funding rounds the five cities received approximately $8.8 million total from CTCL, with Milwaukee receiving $3,409,500, Green Bay $1,600,000, Racine $1,699,100, Madison $1,271,788, and Kenosha $862,799.
Wisconsin Safe Voting Plan 2020: https://www.techandciviclife.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Approved-Wisconsin-Safe-Voting-Plan-2020.pdf | Center for Tech and Civic Life