'Dark Money' and 'Illegal Ballot Drop Boxes' Cited in Legal Complaint Against Milwaukee Officials Who Took 'Zuck Bucks'

The acting mayor, former mayor, and the city clerk of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, are being accused of election bribery in a complaint filed Wednesday with the Wisconsin Elections Commission. 

Attorneys with the Thomas More Society, acting on behalf of a Milwaukee voter, levied allegations against Acting Mayor Cavalier Johnson, former Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, and Milwaukee City Clerk Jim Owczarski, stating that these officials acted in violation of Wisconsin's election bribery law, Statute § 12.11. when they accepted private funding from the Center for Tech and Civic Life in order to facilitate in-person and absentee voting and to purchase and place absentee ballot drop boxes. 

The Center for Tech and Civic Life, a non-profit Chicago-based organization, was led and staffed by former Democratic activists and funded in the amount of over $400 million by billionaire Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, to influence the 2020 election. Critics say those "Zuck bucks" were part of an attempt to influence the election. 

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The complaint alleges that the City of Milwaukee's privately funded absentee ballot drop boxes in the 2020 election were illegal under multiple Wisconsin Statutes and violated federal law.

The complaint filed with the commission is one of several filed in Wisconsin, following previous complaints against Racine, Green Bay, Kenosha, and Madison, which asserted violations of election law and bribery of election officials by the Center for Tech and Civic Life.  

The Milwaukee complaint contends that Barrett and Owczarski entered into an agreement with the Center for Tech and Civic Life, a partisan, special interest organization, to accept $3.4 million to facilitate in-person and absentee voting in the city, which is a violation of Wisconsin law. 

Thomas More Society Special Counsel Erick Kaardal described in the complaint as detailing a massive scheme on the part of the Center for Tech and Civic Life, to usurp the administration of the election, a core traditional governmental function. Under the guise of COVID-19 prevention and via the illegal dumping of private money into the municipal process, the Center for Tech and Civic Life handed control of the 2020 election in Wisconsin over to private partisan interests, in the form of its "partners."

"We can't undo the wrongs of the 2020 election," Kaardal explained, "But it is incumbent upon us to ensure that the corruption that infected Wisconsin's voting process is rooted out and that the state's election integrity is preserved. Wisconsin's voters deserve to know the truth and they need to be assured that the corruption has been eliminated, allowing for fair and honest elections from this point forward."

The complaint goes on to document how the Center for Tech and Civic Life persuaded officials of Wisconsin's five largest cities to sign contractual "gift" or "grant" agreements for funds publicly billed as COVID-19 response grants. The filing details evidence of the actions by the self-identified "Wisconsin 5" in contracting to utilize partners, none of whom were health or medical experts, to effect the Wisconsin Safe Voting Plan. This plan, executed as the grant contracts required, had nothing to do with the health and safety of Wisconsin voters, but rather outsourced the process to partisan "experts" in "election administration."

In Wisconsin, it is illegal for anyone to take money to induce a voter to go to the polls, and according to the complaint, this was the primary reason that Milwaukee, and the other municipalities of the Wisconsin 5, were given these large sums of money by the Center for Tech and Civic Life. 

You can read the entire complaint here. 

"The evidence in this complaint is overwhelming and condemning," Kaardal said. "Even on the surface, given all benefit of the doubt, there is no question that Mayor Barrett and Clerk Owczarski accepted private money from the Center for Tech and Civic Life to facilitate in-person and absentee voting in Milwaukee, as well as illegal ballot drop boxes. This is in violation of Wisconsin election law."

"These elected officials perverted the very process that put them in office. They invited and welcomed pay to play voter manipulation on the part of the Center for Tech and Civic Life and its partners," he continued. "That is intolerable and must never be allowed to occur again."

"The actions of Milwaukee's mayors and city clerk, along with city officials in Kenosha, Racine, Madison, and Green Bay should outrage Wisconsin voters," Kaardal said. Complaints have been filed with the Wisconsin Elections Commission against each of the Wisconsin 5 municipalities.

Milwaukee Mayor's Spokesman Says Money Accepted by City in Very Transparent Process, Deputy City Clerk Says City Clerk's Office Wasn't Involved

CBN News has reached out to Milwaukee Acting Mayor Johnson and City Clerk Owczarski's offices for comment. In an email, Jeff Fleming, communications director for Mayor Johnson's office, told CBN News the money was accepted by the City of Milwaukee in a very transparent process. 

"Some 200 local communities in Wisconsin received grants from the same source during the 2020 elections. It is odd that the lawsuit cites only five communities with these allegations," Fleming wrote. 

"The money was used to address problems that arose because of the COVID pandemic and to encourage voter participation," he explained. "It was accepted by the City of Milwaukee in a very transparent process which included public hearings and a vote to accept the funds at public, televised Common Council meeting.  Suggestions that receiving the money constituted some kind of nefarious or illegal conspiracy are disingenuously false."

Milwaukee Deputy City Clerk Dana Zelazny also responded in an email to CBN News' request for comment. 

"While I have not had the opportunity to review any such complaint, I would note that city clerks in Wisconsin are responsible for administering elections, except in cities of the first class, like Milwaukee. In Milwaukee, by state law, elections are administered by a board of election commissioners, currently under the auspices of Executive Director Claire Woodall-Vogg," Zelazny wrote. 

"This office has no role in the administration of elections nor has it applied for or accepted any election-related grant," she concluded. 

Investigation Commissioned by Wisconsin General Assembly Alleges Multiple Election Violations

As CBN News reported earlier this month, a private investigation conducted by the nonprofit Thomas More Society on behalf of the Wisconsin Voter Alliance alleges multiple violations of election law by Wisconsin state officials in the 2020 election. 

The Society's research findings were corroborated by a separate 136-page report released by former state Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman. He was appointed by the Wisconsin General Assembly's Campaigns and Elections Committee as a special counsel to investigate suspected election improprieties in Wisconsin's 2020 general election.

Cracking Down on 'Dark Money' in Elections

Several Wisconsin counties, including Walworth County and Brown County, have passed, or are considering such bans on what is being labeled "dark money" in elections.

"This is representative of a national trend," explained Thomas More Society Special Counsel Erick Kaardal. "Sixteen states have now passed legislation to ban or regulate the acceptance and use of private funds by public election officers." 

Kaardal said Thomas More Society attorneys, prior to the 2020 election, were the first to litigate this issue and lawyers filed litigation in nine states.  

"All of this litigation led to successful legislative action to ban this 'dark money.' Arizona, Georgia, and Texas passed legislation addressing this issue," he noted. "And, in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, the legislature passed laws regulating this conduct, but those laws were vetoed by Democrat governors. Three other states, Minnesota, Iowa, and South Carolina have passed bills regulating this conduct, and are now waiting for those bills to be enacted."