Posted on 04/09/2023 5:42:08 AM PDT by cutty
"Community mobilizers" could make as much as $270 by creating a list of 75 people and making sustained efforts to turn out 60 of them to vote in the Wisconsin Supreme Court election.
Wisconsin lawmaker is questioning whether it was legal for a political action committee to pay people to encourage others to vote for liberal Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Janet Protasiewicz in the state Supreme Court election in the latest mobilization tactic to raise integrity concerns in the battleground state.
Wisconsin Takes Action, a project of Organizing Empowerment PAC, held live Zoom training sessions during the Wisconsin Supreme Court race, instructing potential "community mobilizers" on how to reach out to people to encourage them to vote and get paid hundreds of dollars for their outreach efforts.
During an hour-long training session on the day after the Wisconsin Supreme Court primary election in February, the organizers running the session explained how attendees could earn $30 by downloading an app from the Empower Project, a left-wing organization that helps "progressive organizations and nonprofits ... activate, build, and expand their activist bases and organizational reach on a meaningful scale," according to its website.
Empower Project uses "relational organizing" for reaching out to potential voters because "talking to people who you do know," a trainer explained, is "really effective because you talking to your father to go vote or your sister or your friend is a lot more effective than me telling them to go vote because I don't know them. But with you, there's a lot more connection or relationship built and more reason for them to be compelled to go vote."
With the app, mobilizers can add names and phone numbers of 75 people but are to contact only 60 of them. The other 15 are not to be contacted to serve as a control group in the "relational organizing" experiment.
"So, out of the 75 people you add, 60 people will be eligible to be reached out to — it's nothing about them personally, the app pulls them automatically," one of the organizers explained in the training. "So, if you see that your sister was marked as 'do not contact,' do your best to not reach out to her about going to go vote. That's just gonna really help us be able to make sure that we have accurate data and making sure this campaign is reflected in terms of our results here."
From Feb. 22 to March 19, mobilizers were to create their lists and contact the 60 people to ask if they were registered to vote. If the mobilizers did this, then they would receive a $60 gift card from their choice of various retailers or a prepaid Mastercard. The 60 contacts were then to be contacted again between March 20 and March 30 to be encouraged to vote early, which would get the mobilizers another $65 gift card.
Then, between March 31 and April 2, mobilizers were to contact the 60 people again to ensure they had a plan to vote, which would earn a $70 gift card. Finally, both the day before and on Election Day, mobilizers were to contact the 60 people to encourage them to go to the polls, worth another $75 gift card. Completing all of these steps resulted in a total of $270 in gift cards.
However, between the training session and March 19, mobilizers could make an additional $30 for every person they were able to recruit to the campaign and download the app.
"The primary was just last night for the Supreme Court so we know who will be on the ballot in the general election," one of the organizers explained during the training. "We have Dan Kelly, the conservative former Supreme Court justice and then Janet Protasiewicz — the progressive circuit court judge currently — and she is the progressive candidate who just won the primary.
"Of course, Wisconsin Takes Action is focused on putting forth progressive ideas and implementing progressive laws, so, you know, we really are looking forward to her as the candidate for this upcoming election."
The organization is "offering an opportunity to help influence a really important election that's gonna decide a Supreme Court majority for years to come," the organizer said. "What's at stake? You know, a number of things. When it comes to selecting the Supreme Court justice, you know, that can decide the majority, a number of things that we've hold dear for the past 50 or 60 years can be at risk, including reproductive freedom, public education, healthcare access, criminal justice reform, voting and civil rights, and holding big business accountable."
Wisconsin Takes Action is partnered with other left-wing organizations, such as Black Lives Matter PAC, One Fair Wage, End Citizens United and labor unions The American Federation of Teachers and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.
Despite claiming to use people's personal networks for outreach, one organizer said: "To reach out to people, you really only need their name and phone number. Also, because you don't need to know them at all, we're paying just to reach out to people. As long as you can send a text to somebody with a number, that's going count as outreach."
One of the organizers explained how the app has texts prewritten for mobilizers to send to their contacts, saying that they could send them to acquaintances at local pharmacies and gyms.
After an attendee asked who was paying for this outreach through gift cards, an organizer said that donors give to a nonprofit that oversees Wisconsin Takes Action and provides the funds.
Wisconsin GOP state Rep. Janel Brandtjen told Just the News on Friday she believes that offering gift cards in exchange for mobilizing voters violates state law forbidding election bribery. If it doesn't violate the law, then Republicans should use it, she added.
According to Wisconsin statute 12.11(1m), someone has committed election bribery if that person "[o]ffers, gives, lends or promises to give or lend, or endeavors to procure, anything of value, or any office or employment or any privilege or immunity to, or for, any elector, or to or for any other person, in order to induce any elector to:
Go to or refrain from going to the polls. Vote or refrain from voting. Vote or refrain from voting for or against a particular person. Vote or refrain from voting for or against a particular referendum; or on account of any elector having done any of the above." One of the organizers said during the training session: "This type of organizing is almost brand new. The first time it was utilized was in 2020, and then it was only used in the Georgia runoff [Senate] elections. They did it last cycle in Nevada in the last election cycle and it worked really well."
The organizer added, "Now they're planning to do it for this and then for all swing states in 2024 potentially."
"It's sad that we got to the point that $40 gift cards are a necessity to get people to vote," Brandtjen said, noting that there were hundreds of people in the first training session and that Wisconsin Takes Action did three or four sessions a day.
Phill Kline, director of the election watchdog group The Amistad Project, told Just the News on Friday that while it's illegal to pay someone to vote, campaigns and tax-exempt organizations can organize get-out-the-vote efforts. However, those efforts become illegal, he explained, when they target specific voters for specific candidates.
"The challenge with surveillance capitalism," Kline said, is that it makes it "very easy ... to access, analyze, and use information to impact one candidate over another. If it's done legally, then the issue is why isn't the Republican Party doing it?"
Current election laws are "antiquated," Kline said, as they don't "contemplate these sophisticated efforts with surveillance capitalism." Americans are losing faith in their elections, he argued, as outcomes increasingly hinge on "who can best game the system" when using private money to influence elections.
The Republican National Committee didn't immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday.
The Republican Party of Wisconsin filed a complaint with the Wisconsin Ethics Commission last month alleging that Wisconsin Takes Action and Organizing Empowerment PAC violated state campaign finance laws "by failing to file as a Political Action Committee (PAC) with the Wisconsin Ethics Committee."
Organizing Empowerment PAC told WisPolitics.com that it is complying with all filing requirements under state law. The PAC said it doesn't meet the threshold of allocating more than 50% of its total spending in a year to independent expenditures that would require it to register as an independent expenditure committee.
Will wait to see who gets charged with a crime. Usually just crickets.
Barry was a community organizer with no useful accomplishments.
Too late. Stolen elections are permanent. In fact, if you protest too much you get the J6 punishment.
Rep. Brantjen is doing all the heavy lifting related to improving election integrity. Unfortunately Speaker Robin Vos, RPW Brian Schimming and all the legislative lemmings are not lifting a finger to help. Instead Vos, who is a nasty little bully, has stripped Rep. Brantjen of staff and has barred her from caucus meetings. ONLY 2 of the 61 Assembly Caucus objected publicly and Vos stripped committee assignments and staff.
Face it with this “leadership” Wisconsin is a lost cause and 2024 and unfortunately another 4 years of regime incompetence and abuse
No one will be charged with a crime. Believe me, the Socialist Democrats in Dane and Milwaukee Counties are EXPERTS at ‘getting out the vote’ whether it involves actual, legitimate voters...or not!
Leading up to the election, I got 4 texts every day from Socialist Democrat groups, urging me to vote. The morning of the election I received a CREEPY text with a picture of my voting place reminding me to vote and saying ‘we noticed you haven’t voted yet, today!’ Big Brother, Anyone? Yikes!
I have never voted Socialist Democrat in my entire life. Why I’m on these text lists is beyond me. Why ping me? You won’t like how I vote, anyway.
And how many texts did I get from the GOP? Absolutely zero. We are SO out of touch with this current crop of sculls-full-of-mush voters (Miss You, Rush!) it’s ridiculous.
*Steps Off Soap Box*
According to Wisconsin statute 12.11(1m), someone has committed election bribery if that person “[o]ffers, gives, lends or promises to give or lend, or endeavors to procure, anything of value, or any office or employment or any privilege or immunity to, or for, any elector, or to or for any other person, in order to induce any elector to:
Go to or refrain from going to the polls. Vote or refrain from voting. Vote or refrain from voting for or against a particular person. Vote or refrain from voting for or against a particular referendum; or on account of any elector having done any of the above.”
looks like bribery to me make criminal complaint..not ethic charges.
Diana- Laying this at the feet of Brian Schimming and Robin Vos- I know you worked all you could in Ozaukee and I would like to think I made a difference in Waukesha. As long as we have feckless, self centered leadership more interested in purging America First supporters from positions in PRW- lost cause I am afraid-
Too late now. Not gonna get any relief from the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
Same as the last Presidential election - the tactics used in Wisconsin to get Evers elected, migrated to the national election to get Biden elected.
Coming soon to all states in 2024 - legal vote bribery. There is no way the Dems can lose 2024, since all the millions of illegals, that will have crossed the southern boarder by then, will jump for the easy cash. Not to mention the ‘homeless’ and drug addled etc.
Aright so in 2024 the GOP does the exact same thing, along with the NRA, Right to Life, Americans for Prosperity, ect. And they collect and submit ballots where legal.
Yep. Something needs to give. I’ll keep the pressure on Schimming. ;)
Effective strategy, she won. Democrats are the road runner, we’re the coyote.
Paying someone to go vote is legal and ethical. Not paying them to vote for anyone in particular, just get their fat arshe into a polling station.
What is wrong is that 1-2 guys will do this, and 40-50 others will simply gather some pre-printed ballots and fill them out and turn those in. That is what happened when GNewsome beat his recall “election”. Blank ballots were found in the hands of convicted felons with drugs and guns in hand — and he walked.
Nice head shot of Robin Vos, who is and has always been a RINO prick.
The pay is the same if you’re in the minority, AND you aren’t expected to actually accomplish anything. You can author the occasional bill that your constituents want, but it’ll either not make it to a vote, or be voted down. Either of which is a victory! As you can say “See! I tried! I’ll try again when we get control of this body. Please send a donation to help me hold this office in the next election”.
So, they can sit on the sidelines and not care. (which is what I believe is the case).
I hate these stories. They just highlight how clueless the piubs. There are no real players in the whole lot.
> Paying someone to go vote is legal and ethical. Not paying them to vote for anyone in particular, just get their fat arshe into a polling station.
Wisconsin statutes specifically clarify this as “election bribery”, seems like a good idea. In practice though no one is charged. If prosecutors decline to enforce what should people do?
Meanwhile in California it’s anything goes, and if Trump’s against it double down. I’ve talked to plenty of liberals and they are willfully blinded to the consequences. They refuse to recognize any reason that would invalidate the foundation of their consensual zeitgeist.
Stop undermining demoncrazy.
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