UPDATED: Former Racine alderman/mayoral candidate files another complaint against city regarding 2020 election | Local News

A conservative Chicago law firm that has been working with the Republican-appointed special counsel probing Wisconsin’s 2020 election has filed another spate of lawsuits challenging another aspect of that election — ballot drop boxes — that has long raised the ire of Republicans, especially since their candidate for president lost.

The Thomas More Society, however, isn’t suing all the approximately 245 Wisconsin municipalities that used the absentee ballot drop boxes in November 2020, just the five largest and most democratic-leaning: Milwaukee, Madison, Green Bay, Kenosha and Racine.

The firm, on behalf of a total of six residents in the five municipalities, notes that state law is silent on the use of drop boxes and asks a judge to declare them “legally unauthorized” and permanently barred.

Weidner

The complaint filed against the City of Racine came from Sandy Weidner, who served on the City Council from 2000-2020 and ran for mayor in 2017 and as a write-in in 2019.

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Democrats and Republicans alike largely approved of drop boxes prior to the 2020 election, and the bipartisan Wisconsin Elections Commission approved their use in the election as a way to cut down on crowds at polling places at a time when there was no vaccine against COVID-19 and public health authorities were warning that large groups, such as at polling places, could spread the virus that has so far been blamed for the killing of more than 1 million Americans.

A January ruling by a Waukesha County judge that barred the use of drop boxes except in a clerk’s office has been appealed and the legality of drop boxes is now before the Wisconsin Supreme Court, which is expected to rule on the matter sometime this summer.

One of the drop boxes available for use by City of Racine absentee voters during the 2020 presidential election is pictured here.

City of Racine photo

Weidner’s complaint states that “The City of Racine used unmanned absentee ballot drop boxes in the November 2020 election and did use or may use them in subsequent elections. The City of Racine has no published policy discontinuing the City’s use of unmanned absentee ballot drop boxes, “Although they are no longer being used.

This is at least the second formal complaint Weidner has filed regarding the 2020 election. In January, she and another woman alleged that the grants the City of Racine and other Wisconsin cities received prior to the 2020 presidential election constituted bribery; a Dane County judge earlier this month characterized as “ridiculous” the claims that accepting grants to help fund elections constituted bribery.

There is nothing in state law barring private funding to help administer elections.

The new complaint seeks a court order banning drop boxes and “a permanent injunction” against the cities involved “to cease and desist from the use of unmanned absentee ballot drop boxes.”

The complaints, since they only seek action against Racine, Kenosha, Milwaukee, Madison and Green Bay, would not affect the right-leaning areas that used drop boxes about as often as left-leaning areas.

The Elections Commission in February rescinded its guidance allowing drop boxes, in keeping with the lower court’s ruling. The nonpartisan Legislative Audit Bureau found the drop boxes were used in at least 43 cities, 46 villages and 156 towns throughout the state in the 2020 election.

The Milwaukee, Madison, Green Bay, Kenosha and Racine clerks’ offices did not respond to an opportunity to comment.

caardal

When pressed for comment on why the group is suing only those five cities and not the dozens of other communities that used drop boxes, an attorney for the group, Erick Kaardal, said in an email “The reason that the complaints are focused on the Wisconsin 5 cities, the Center for Tech and Civic Life and Wisconsin Elections Commission is simple. They were all involved in a horrific violation of Wisconsin election law which was planned in the months of late March through June of 2020.”

He then claimed that those five cities “knew that the unmanned absentee ballot boxes were illegal” despite the WEC advising otherwise, and not addressing the dozens of other communities.

Kaardal has been working with former state Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman on his ongoing $676,000 probe of the election. That review was paused earlier this month by Assembly Speaker Robin Vos to allow time for resolution of five lawsuits related to the probe.

Much like multiple judges, outside reviews and recounts, Gableman has so far found no evidence of the kind of widespread fraud or criminal activity that could have changed the outcome of the election in Wisconsin, where Joe Biden beat Donald Trump by just fewer than 21,000 votes .

Still, he and other conservatives continue to allege a conspiracy among Democratic-leaning nonprofits and elections officials to use more than $10 million from the Chicago-based nonprofit Center for Tech and Civic Life to boost turnout in Democratic areas under the guise of “safe voting ” during a pandemic.

Money from the Center for Tech and Civic Life was distributed to about 214 Wisconsin municipalities, including many won by Trump, to pay for things including poll worker training and wages, new voting machines, ballot drop boxes and personal protective equipment. While the state’s five largest and most democratic-leaning municipalities got between two and four times more money per capita than other municipalities, the center has said no municipality that asked for the money was denied it.

Adam Rogan of The Journal Times contributed to this report.

The clear insinuation was that someone not qualified to conduct an election improperly influenced these vulnerable voters. But the Wisconsin State Journal could not confirm the data.

The state has multiple, overlapping safeguards aimed at preventing ineligible voters from casting ballots, tampering with the ballots or altering vote totals.

Nothing in the emails suggests there were problems with the election that contributed in any meaningful way to Trump’s 20,682-vote loss to Joe Biden.

“Despite concerns with statewide elections procedures, this audit showed us that the election was largely safe and secure,” Sen. Rob Cowles said Friday.

The grants were provided to every Wisconsin municipality that asked for them, and in the amounts they asked for.

“Application of the US Department of Justice guidance among the clerks in Wisconsin is not uniform,” the memo says.

The memo states that state law gives the Audit Bureau complete access to all records during an audit investigation and federal law and guidance does not prohibit an election official from handling over election records.

Drop boxes were used throughout Wisconsin, including in areas where Trump won the vast majority of counties.

Thousands of ballot certifications examined from Madison are a window onto how elections officials handled a pandemic and a divided and unhelpful state government.

“I don’t think that you instill confidence in a process by kind of blindly assuming there’s nothing to see here,” WILL president and general counsel Rick Esenberg said.

The Associated Press reviewed every potential case of voter fraud in six battleground states — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania…

The report is the latest to show that there was not widespread fraud in Wisconsin.

The turnout at nursing homes in Brown, Kenosha, Milwaukee and Racine counties in 2020 was not much different from the turnout in 2016.

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