Racine Sun

Racine Mayor Cory Mason and Clerk Tara Coolidge violated the state’s “election bribery” law by accepting funds from a nonprofit in a get-out-the-vote effort disguised as a safe voting plan, two city residents allege in a complaint filed with the Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC).

The residents, Kim Morrison and Sandy Weidner, are affiliated with the Wisconsin Voter Alliance (WVA), a conservative-leaning election group based in Kewaunee.

WVA President Ron Heuer said that Racine had an agreement with the private, nonprofit Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL) under a Wisconsin Safe Voting Plan drafted in June 2020 with four other Wisconsin cities to accept CTCL money in exchange for encouraging in-person and absentee voting.

“The law on election bribery prohibits a city from receiving money to facilitate electors to go to the polls or to facilitate electors to vote absentee,” Heuer told Racine Sun.

Racine used the private funds “to recruit and promote, train and employ paid voter ambassadors who would set up at the city’s community centers to assist voters with all aspects of absentee ballot request, including photo ID compliance,” the complaint says.

In total, Racine and the other four cities, Milwaukee, Kenosha, Green Bay and Madison (which Heuer refers to as the Wisconsin 5) received $8.8 million from CTCL leading up to the 2020 general election. The home counties for Milwaukee and Madison backed Democrat President Joe Biden, while the counties surrounding Green Bay, Racine and Kenosha supported former President Donald Trump. 

Heuer said legal action against the other four cities are likely to follow.

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, 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.

Heuer also noted that a Waukesha County judge ruled Jan. 13 that the use of drop boxes, encouraged under the agreement with CTCL, violate state election laws.

“The money to deploy these unlawful absentee ballot drop boxes came from the CTCL funding,” he said.

This week, the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty asked the state Supreme Court to lift a lower court ruling that put the Jan. 13 ruling on hold.