Milwaukee seeks private funds to buy election equipment despite looming vote to prohibit such grants

The Milwaukee Election Commission is seeking a nearly $800,000 private grant for election equipment ahead of the November presidential election that is expected to again pit President Joe Biden against former President Donald Trump.

Trump and some of his allies in the state Legislature have sought to cast doubt on the validity of Milwaukee's vote in 2020, including based on a similar grant the city and other Wisconsin communities received to help with elections in the coronavirus pandemic.

At a Common Council committee meeting Thursday, Election Commission Executive Director Claire Woodall said she did not know who was funding the 501(c)(3) nonprofit that is providing the grant, Washington D.C.-based Cities Forward. The donors have not been released, and the organization, which has been tax-exempt just since January, has not yet filed documentation with the IRS that shows all of the people involved.

"What I think is really important is that they are a registered nonprofit, they are non-partisan, and they are funding this exactly as I have put out and requested, and no one has asked me to change my funding request or spend it a certain way," she said.

Milwaukee Election Commission executive director says election grant funders have not sought influence over election

Woodall told the Journal Sentinel after the meeting that she expected the grant to "fuel the exact same speculation we saw in 2020," a reference to Republicans' longstanding scrutiny of millions of dollarsin grants to cities like Milwaukee from the Center for Tech and Civic Life to help run elections in the pandemic. The organization was financed by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan.

Woodall said she did not know in 2020 who was funding the grant. She said she asked the nonprofit for what her office needed, and it was funded.

"In neither grant have I ever seen any influence of any type of funders trying to engage in election administration," she said.

The grant agreement between the Election Commission and Cities Forward includes a prohibition on using the funds to try to influence the outcome of any election or to participate or intervene in any political campaign for or against any candidate. It also prohibits using the grant funds to try to influence the "selection, nomination, election or appointment of any individual to any public office or office in a political organization."

The scrutiny over the Center for Tech and Civic Life grants is fueling an April 2 referendum on a constitutional amendment that would bar state agencies and local governments from using private grant money to help administer elections.

Woodall said the city is prepared to make the purchase before voters go to the polls on April 2, if the Common Council approves the grant at its meeting Tuesday. The Judiciary and Legislation Committee recommended allowing the Election Commission to receive the grant on Thursday.

The equipment — the most expensive of which are two machines to count absentee ballots — would be received after the April 2 election for use in the other 2024 elections, she said.

Milwaukee grant request follows Monday absentee ballot processing failure in state Legislature

The grant request comes after legislation that would have allowed clerks to begin processing absentee ballots the day before Election Day died in the Republican-controlled state Senate. The change would have allowed Milwaukee to report absentee ballot results earlier, short-circuiting misleading claims of "ballot dumps" in the middle of the night.

As it stands, Wisconsin clerks cannot start processing absentee ballots until 7 a.m. on Election Day. Milwaukee and many other communities count their absentee ballots in a single location, known as "central count," and report the results all at once. Particularly in Milwaukee, and especially in high-turnout elections, the counting of those ballots has stretched late into the night or early morning and led sometimes to a late change in who prevailed in a hotly contested statewide race.

Assembly Majority Leader Tyler August said as the bill died that if the Senate didn't take it up, Milwaukee officials should work to avoid late postings of results.

In a statement, Sam Oliker-Friedland of Cities Forward slammed the Republican-controlled state Legislature for not taking action on a bill that would have allowed the state Elections Commission to provide funding for municipalities to purchase election supplies and equipment.

“Cities Forward is pleased to support Milwaukee with funding for an urgent election infrastructure request to replace aging tabulators and (Americans with Disabilities Act)-compliant voting equipment, especially given that unlike most other states, Milwaukee is not allowed to pre-process ballots, which creates unusually acute operational challenges in needing to process thousands of ballots on election day," he said.

Cities Forward will publish its major donors on a tax form and its website "no later than November," he said. The presidential election is Nov. 5.

The grant agreement says the nonprofit "works to prioritize participation in our democracy by supporting cities in the development of nonpartisan, city-driven projects to boost civic participation and by helping cities strengthen the infrastructure of civic engagement."

Cities Forward grant would be used to fund Milwaukee election equipment

According to the grant request, the $786,850 in funding would be used to purchase:

• Two high-speed machines known as "tabulators" for counting absentee ballots, bringing the Election Commission's inventory up to 11 machines, Woodall said. The total cost for the two machines would be $292,750.

• 50 ExpressVote machines, which allow voters to use a touch screen to mark their ballots and produce a paper record for tabulation. These ADA-compliant machines allow voters with challenges seeing or hearing to fill out ballots independently and privately, according to the Election Commission. The total cost for the machines would be $211,250.

• 210 smartphones to replace flip phones currently used by Election Commission staff and polling place staff to communicate on Election Day. The phones would be activated only during the month of an election and would also serve other purposes such as allowing chief inspectors to document with a photograph any concerns or questions. These would cost $147,000.

• TextMyGov service to provide non-partisan voting information to city voters in an effort to head off mis- and dis-information and for curbside voters to notify election inspectors inside a polling place that they need assistance. It would also be used for commission staff communication. It would cost $37,500.

• Twenty additional security cameras ($50,000) and additional lighting ($10,000) on the front of the commission's operations center, where the commission stores and maintains all voting equipment and polling place supplies, blank ballots and incoming voted absentee ballots.

• The remainder would fund trolleys to move tables and electric pallet jacks for the operations center in addition to a-frames and interchangeable signs that would be used with them to direct voters at early voting locations and Election Day polling places.

Alison Dirr can be reached at adirr@jrn.com.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Milwaukee seeks election equipment grant ahead of April 2 referendum