Green Bay Reporter

Green Bay is at the center of fight over millions of dollars donated by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and other billionaires to organizations for election management in battleground states in the November 2020 elections – a role the U.S. Constitution reserves for government.

Conservative watchdog group the Amistad Project points to email records allegedly showing that Green Bay Clerk Kris Teske, whose office was authorized to administer the elections in the city, was pushed out by Mayor Eric Genrich, and effectively replaced by Michael Spitzer-Rubenstein, an official with the progressive National Vote at Home Institute (NVHI). Spitzer-Rubenstein was subsequently handed the keys to the ballot counting room, Amistad alleged in a statement about a formal complaint it filed in the matter.

In addition, the city allegedly formed an ad hoc elections committee made up of former Democratic operatives, including Susan Smith, who worked under Kamala Harris when she was California attorney general.

Another was Amaad Rivera-Wagner, who moved to Green Bay after a failed bid for a Massachusetts state Senate seat. Three weeks ago Genrich appointed Rivera-Wagner his chief of staff. The mayor’s former chief of state Celestine Jeffreys became city clerk after Teske left.

“(The) disturbing pattern in Green Bay was that the election there was not run by a city clerk as state law requires but by coastal elites who descended on Green Bay to legally stuff the ballot box with Democrat absentee ballots,” Matt Batzel, the national executive director of American Majority, told the Green Bay Reporter.

Former President Donald Trump carried Brown County, where Green Bay is located, by more than 10,000 votes. President Joe Biden, however, won the Wisconsin state vote by more than 20,000 votes.

The most prominent activist group involved in Wisconsin, and in other battleground states, was the Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL), a group that Amistad says Spitzer-Rubenstein worked with, and through which Zuckerberg funneled nearly $400 million. In exchange for grants to government officials, CTCL allegedly dictated how the money was to be spent, an email exchange between the group and the city of Philadelphia allegedly shows.

Amistad learned that the activists allegedly oversaw ballot curing (fixing ballot errors) and counting. Phill Kline, director of the group, told the Green Bay Reporter that these activities were “the tip of the iceberg,” and that he has no doubt “laws were broken.”

An Amistad complaint filed last month with the Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC) alleges that some officials with WEC knew what was going on in Green Bay and even approved of it.

“The WEC administrator's involvement raises serious doubts regarding the objectivity of the commission in conducting an investigation," Erick Kaardal, special counsel for Amistad, said in a statement. "Moreover, the WEC's administrator, Meagan Wolfe, should recuse herself from investigation and all aspects of this case due to her unilateral approval of Green Bay's election conduct prior to calling a commission meeting to discuss concerns regarding Green Bay's election conduct. Fairness, openness, and a thorough review by WEC are necessary, and Ms. Wolfe has demonstrated her hostility to such an approach."

Kline said whatever the outcome of the complaint, Amistad will keep working until the full extent of the activists’ involvement in the elections becomes clear.