When the magic words “vote fraud” are mentioned, what comes to mind for most people, no matter their party, is a Democrat city run by a Tamanny-Hall-like machine. Chicago, Philadelphia, and Milwaukee quickly come to the fore.
The march toward the North Korean model of elections, where the “right” candidate wins by 99% of the vote, is sometimes brought up short because all the people involved are just too sloppy.
The Wisconsin Republican Party is suing Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson. The party’s lawsuit filed in Milwaukee County asks a judge to deem the mayor’s involvement and promotion of “get out the vote” work called “Milwaukee Votes 2022” to be illegal. The suit also asks the judge to stop the city from helping or coordinating with the project in the future. The mayor’s spokesman said the city will strongly fight the allegations.
Earlier in the month, an open records request by the Wisconsin GOP found that the administration of Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier (I am not making that up) Johnson was working hand-in-glove with an AstroTurf group called “Milwaukee Votes 2022” to get out the vote. This group, which bills itself as “non-partisan,” developed a voting app, had a widget on the official Milwaukee website, and was touted by Mayor Johnson as official representatives of the city. This is from Fox6 Milwaukee:
The debate and lawsuit was sparked after the mayor spoke on Sept. 12.
“We’re doing more. And I’m going to be embracing outreach and engagement through what we’re calling ‘Milwaukee Votes 2022,'” he said at an event marking Disability Voting Rights Week.
Johnson said the effort would include a widget on Milwaukee city web pages – and more.
“Milwaukee Votes 2022 will also have door-to-door canvassers that will be underway, funded by the private sector. Dozens of canvassers will be face to face with eligible voters encouraging them to exercise their right to vote for the November election,” added Johnson at the Sept. 12 event.
What the open records request revealed was the head of “Milwaukee Votes 2022,” Democrat grifter — I’m sorry, I really meant to say “activist” — Sachin Chheda (that is not a typo, and it sounds comically like the slang for money) telling Mayor Johnson that his “non-profit” had received an astonishing $1 million for GOTV from the “High Ground Institute.”
Wanted to let you guys know we have been approved for a $1M grant from the Center for Secure and Modern Elections. The money is coming to the High Ground Institute to support the nonpartisan Milwaukee Votes 2022 Canvass as we discussed. We should set up a meeting next week to give you guys the full update.
A quick check revealed that High Ground Institutes’s board included well-known Democrat politicians such as Martha Love, former chairwoman of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin and current DNC member representing the state; Marlene Ott, former chair of the Milwaukee County Democratic Party; and Democratic consultant Thad Nation. As a twist, Nation is a business partner of Chheda, and the High Ground Institute shares a mailing address with Milwaukee Votes 2022.
When the news broke, there was a furious series of messages between Chheda and the city, trying to get their stories straight.
“Are we coordinating all vote events with your group? Based on the media frenzy yesterday, I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Johnson’s spokesman Jeff Fleming asks Chheda in a text sent earlier this month.
“When I don’t have information we can’t coordinate,” Chheda testily responds. “I’m not saying every event would be with us, but if you can let me know what’s going on, then I can answer questions and plan. So yes, I do want to know everything related to voting.”
…
Chheda, in writing the press statement for the mayor’s office, instructed Fleming to say: “There are nonprofit, nonpartisan groups who are canvassing door to door, funded entirely by civic-minded philanthropists, to encourage Milwaukeeans to vote. The city is neither funding nor receiving funds to canvass, and the mayor is voicing his support for the city’s partnership with these nonprofit, nonpartisan groups who are mobilizing voters.”
Chheda then gets up on his left-wing activist soap box, offering an extended statement that never makes it to the press. It shows, once again, Milwaukee’s election office being infiltrated by liberal activist groups:
The mayor is excited about all the work happening to encourage voting with the city and in partnership with outside groups. That includes the widget being installed on the city website which was developed by nonprofit partners and is available to any citizen who wants to check their voter registration statute or learn how to register, regardless of party. That includes the Early Voting sites funded by city taxpayers that allow all citizens to vote at more than a dozen locations across the city over the course of the 2-weeks early voting period. It includes the work discussed today to make it easier for disabled citizens to have their voice heard. And it includes the city’s support of these nonprofit, nonpartisan groups who are canvassing door to door.
At one point, following a screed demanding he be kept in the loop about public statements, Chheda tells the mayor’s office, “Our funders do not want us to refer folks to [Editor’s note: former communications director to Democrat Governor Tony Evers] Melissa [Baldauff] after all.”
He then rips conservative talk show host Dan O’Donnell, who had reached out to Baldauff for comment earlier this month.
“I do not engage bad actors like Dan O’Donnell He’s not a journalist. He’s a political activist,” Chheda, the political activist, wrote. “If there are further enquires [sic], can we please discuss before any response is offered. I’d appreciate it. Thank you.
According to The Federalist, the Republican Party of Wisconsin’s objection is very much like the objection to the “Zuckerbucks” that plagued Wisconsin in 2020.
RPW Executive Director Mark Jefferson says the party is deeply concerned that cities like Milwaukee are working with Democrat operatives and partisan third-party groups to get out the vote “in a manner designed to tip the scales for Democrats.”
“Government’s role in elections must be to ensure fairness and transparency, not to benefit one party at the expense of another, and we will aggressively fight to ensure that election laws are followed,” Jefferson said.
“Zuckerbucks,” you’ll recall, were the millions of dollars that Facebook poohbah Mark Zuckerberg gave to local governments to help run elections. This gave governments an unaccountable stream of funds that could be used without any oversight.
During the 2020 presidential election, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative–led by tech billionaire Mark Zuckerberg and his wife–donated more than $400 million to local election offices in 47 states under the guise of alleviating the burden of COVID-19-related costs. The bulk of these funds were funneled through the Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL), a left-leaning non-profit with significant ties to various progressive groups and the Obama administration.
…
CTCL’s Form 990 revealed that Zuckerbucks were an even greater threat, with more than $10 million flowing into the Badger State.
The five most populous cities in Wisconsin–Milwaukee, Madison, Green Bay, Kenosha, and Racine–received nearly $8.5 million of the more than $10 million in Zuckerbucks that were funneled into the state.
These cities have traditionally been considered Democrat strongholds, resulting in more than 80 percent of the state’s Zuckerbucks flowing into heavily concentrated Democrat areas–with Biden winning by an average margin of victory of 37 points. Making matters worse, Milwaukee and Racine received a combined total of five separate grants from CTCL.
The obvious lesson from this is that it should be illegal for governments to accept private money for governmental functions. That defeats the entire purpose of a legislature. If a private entity wants to push a GOTV effort, fine. But they have to play by the same rules as anyone else. Indeed, 24 states have banned or severely restricted the flow of private money into elections. The Wisconsin legislature has passed such a bill twice, only to have it vetoed both times by the Democrat governor.
When government and private entities conspire together to prevent free and fair elections while enriching insiders, we’ve reached a crisis point in our republic.