Green Bay Reporter

District 1 Alderman Barbara Dorff helped architect the privatization of Green Bay’s 2020 election.

And she wants her critics to know she has no regrets.

“(I was) very involved in the election.. and the (private) grant,” she said. “I know what all the expenditures were.”

As the details of those expenditures have been revealed to voters, some city officials have sought to distance themselves from the resulting firestorm. Elected officials and pundits nationally and across Wisconsin have dubbed Green Bay “ground zero" for election fraud.

But Dorff is leaning in, taking personal credit for the city’s decision to let a Chicago-based Democrat activist group funded by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg run the 2020 election, replacing city clerk Kris Teske of Ashwaubenon.

That’s all while Dorff runs for another term in the April 5 election. She faces Green Bay accountant turned homemaker Jennifer Grant.

“We support the way our elections were run, we support our mayor, our staff,” Dorff said. “This is the time that we stand behind what we know to be true."

Correcting ballots for Democrat voters. 

To be sure, in fall 2020, few Green Bay voters knew the truth about Dorff’s plan to let an outside activist group handle absentee and Election Day ballot counting.

At the time, Dorff was one of but a handful of Green Bay residents aware that the city had quietly replaced Teske with a New York political operative turned CTCL executive named Michael Spitzer-Rubenstein. 

But a March report by Wisconsin Spotlight, examining city emails in the weeks approaching Nov 3, 2020, finally detailed Spitzer-Rubenstein’s role and his work priorities.

“Can we help with (correcting) absentee ballots that are missing a signature or witness signature address?” Spitzker-Rubenstein wrote to Teske in an email dated Oct. 7, 2020, less than a month before Election Day.

Teske denied Spitzer-Rubenstein’s offer, which was illegal per state law. But Democrat supporters of CTCL, like Green Bay Mayor Eric Genrich and Dorff applied pressure.

Money talked. The Zuckerberg-backed group has given $1.6 million to the city to “help” it with the election. And that money came with preconditions.

“The grant mentors would like to meet with you to discuss, further, the ballot curing process. Please let them know when you’re available,” wrote Celestine Jeffreys, Genrich’s chief of staff, to Task.

Eventually, Teske said she was pushed to the side.

Teske took a leave of absence on Oct 22, leaving the ballot counting fully in the hands of Spitzer-Rubenstein and his Chicago-based team.

According to the Wisconsin Spotlight report, the group was even given control of the keys to the ballot counting rooms on election night, replacing city and Brown County election officials.

“The city of Green Bay literally gave the keys to the election to a Democratic Party operative from New York,” the report said.

State Rep. Janel Brandtjen (R-Menomonee Falls), a Dorff critic, said political operatives with a stake in the election shouldn’t be hired to count ballots.

“I would liken it to if someone had the tea party running the elections in (Republican) Waukesha County,” she said.

Grant told the Press-Gazette she’s running to ensure Dorff can no longer hide decisions like outsourcing of city elections from Green Bay voters.

“Too often meetings have convened in closed sessions, where critical conversations and decisions have been made behind closed doors,” she said. “Closed sessions limit public debate and hide valuable information from the residents of Green Bay."

First elected in 2016, Dorff is vying for her fourth term on the Green Bay City Council. She previously worked as a teacher and principal at Green Bay public schools; her husband, Ed, is a former member of the Green Bay Area School Board.

Other new candidates on the April 5 ballot are retired police officer Andy Nicholson in District 2, Retired Sheriff’s officer Dave Morgan in District 3, Air Force veteran Robert Maccaux in District 5, hunting safety instructor Steve Campbell in district 6 and non profit executive Melinda Eck in District 11.