GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ) — The City of Green Bay is seeking the dismissal of a complaint filed with the Wisconsin Elections Commission over the city’s handling of the November 2020 election.
Five residents, including Republican Party of Brown County chairperson Jim Fitzergald, filed the complaint in April. The group claims the city violated state and federal laws by changing conditions of the election as part of a $1.6 million grant from the Center for Tech and Civic Life.
In a response filed on Tuesday, the city says the complaint should be dismissed because “the complaint is not timely and does not set forth facts establishing probable cause to believe that a violation of law has occurred.”
The response goes on to say, “perhaps most significantly, complainants seek to have the commission do administratively that which is the sole purview of the legislature: craft new election law.”
The city also points out state law does not prohibit municipalities from accepting outside money to conduct elections and “the legislature has acknowledged that current law includes no such provision by its ongoing attempts to enact such a law.”
The city response also states 218 other Wisconsin municipalities received grants from the Center for Tech and Civic Life
The city has maintained it did nothing illegal during the election and it released a 19-page internal report, summarizing how it carried out the election. That memo was also sent as part of the city’s response to the residents’ complaint.
Meghan Wolfe, administrator for the Wisconsin Elections Commission, was also listed as a respondent in the residents’ complaint. Wolfe is also asking for the complaint to be dismissed.
Mayor Eric Genrich, City Clerk Celestine Jeffreys (former chief of staff to Genrich), and former City Clerk Kris Teske were the respondents listed from the city. The city’s attorneys filed a motion on Teske’s behalf for dismissal, citing she “had no role in the administration of the November 2020 election after she began FMLA leave on October 23, 2020.”
The November election in Green Bay has been the source of a lot of criticism from Republicans. Former Green Bay City Clerk Kris Teske resigned shortly after the election. Emails released earlier this year show she was frustrated by the staff from Center for Tech and Civic Life.
“I am very frustrated, along with the Clerk’s Office. I don’t know what to do anymore. I am trying to explain the process but it isn’t heard. I don’t feel I can talk to the Mayor after the last meeting you, me, Celestine, and the Mayor had even though the door is supposedly open,” the city clerk wrote in late August to Green Bay Finance Director Diana Ellenbecker. “I don’t understand how people who don’t have knowledge of the process can tell us how to manage the election.”
Also at issue was the influence of former Democratic operative, Michael Spitzer-Rubenstein, who worked with that group. Spitzer-Rubenstein had asked to help “cure” absentee votes that came in to central count, meaning “correct” ballots that were missing signatures and witness addresses, and allegedly had access to the city’s central count.
