Two residents accuse Green Bay officials of election bribery

Green Bay Mayor Eric Genrich and other city officials have been accused of violating the state’s “election bribery” law. | Adobe Stock

By W.J. Kennedy

Feb 11, 2022

Green Bay Mayor Eric Genrich and other city officials violated the state’s “election bribery” law by accepting funds from a nonprofit in a get-out-the-vote effort masquerading as a safe voting plan leading up to the 2020 general election, two city residents allege in a complaint filed Friday with the Wisconsin Elections Commission.

Theresa Sipes and Donald Schneider are affiliated with the Wisconsin Voter Alliance (WVA), a conservative voting group based in Kewaunee County. Others named in the complaint include former Chief of Staff Celestine Jeffries and former City Clerk Kris Teske.

WVA President Ron Heuer said the city contracted with Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL), which issued a set of voting guidelines including encouraging the use of mail ballots and drop boxes, in exchange for grants totaling nearly $1.62 million. That violates the state’s election bribery law, Heuer said.

“Wisconsin statutes § 12.11 on election bribery, in relevant part, prohibits a city from receiving money to facilitate electors to go to the polls or to facilitate electors to vote absentee,” Heuer told the Green Bay Reporter in an email.

Green Bay is in Brown County, which supported former President Donald Trump in the 2020 election with nearly 53% of the vote.

In addition to the complaint, WVA helped place a digital billboard on state Route 172, a major east-west artery in the Green Bay area, to alert motorists of the alleged election bribery charge, and the illegal use of drop boxes, the latter in reference to Waukesha County Judge Michael Bohren's ruling in January that drop boxes used in the 2020 elections violated the state’s election law.

The backdrop for the billboard consists of images of $100 bills with “Z” printed on them. Z stands for Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who funded CTCL to the tune of nearly $400 million before the elections.

Heuer estimates that 178,000 drivers over the age of 18 will drive by the sign each week.

"It goes up Monday," Heuer said. "A nice Valentine's Day present for the mayor."

Two weeks ago, WVA filed a similar complaint with the WEC against Racine. It also intends to file complaints against Kenosha, Milwaukee and Madison, and to place more billboards. In total, the five cities (which Heuer refers to as the Wisconsin 5), which presented CTCL with a “Safe Voting Plan” agreement, received $8.8 million from CTCL leading up to the 2020 elections.

Kenosha and Racine backed Trump in the 2020 election while the counties of Milwaukee and Dane (Madison) supported Democrat Joe Biden.

The complaint comes on the heels of five WVA circuit court appeals complaints rejected by the Wisconsin Elections Commission, which Heuer in an earlier article said he expected. These were filed against the Wisconsin 5 for effectively creating a two-tiered voting system by spending CTCL funding that other jurisdictions did not receive, or, if they did, received far less.

He noted, for instance, that Kewaunee County (where WVA is based) received $2.72 per voter from CTCL, while Green Bay received $36 per voter. Kewaunee County also backed Trump in the 2020 election with nearly 60% of the vote.

Many of the moves by Wisconsin Republican legislators and conservative citizens to question the 2020 vote followed Trump's baseless claims that he lost the Badger State due to massive voter fraud.