A former Milwaukee election official accused of obtaining fake absentee ballots has been found guilty of misconduct in office and fraud by a Milwaukee County Circuit Court jury.
According to prosecutors, Kimberly Zapata was deputy director at the Milwaukee Election Commission in October 2022. She allegedly obtained three military absentee ballots using fake names and Social Security numbers. Two weeks before the state’s gubernatorial and legislative elections, she sent the ballots to Republican state Rep. Janel Brandtjen.
Ms. Zapata was originally charged in November 2022 with felony misconduct in office and three misdemeanor counts of election fraud.
Under Wisconsin law, active military personnel don’t need to register before voting or provide photo identification when applying for an absentee ballot. According to the court complaint, any request made by someone in the military automatically results in a ballot being issued.
In the March 20 verdict, the jury rejected Ms. Zapata’s defense that her actions were an attempt to expose vulnerabilities in the state’s election system rather than commit a criminal offense. She also told investigators that commission workers at the time were dealing with threats, harassment, and accusations of misconduct, adding to her overall state of mind and her decision to try to expose a real issue in the system.
Ms. Zapata was found guilty of one felony count of misconduct in public office, which can carry a maximum penalty of a $10,000 fine, 42 months in prison, or both. The jury also found her guilty of three counts of making a false statement to obtain or vote an absentee ballot, all misdemeanors carrying potential penalties of a $1,000 fine, six months imprisonment, or both.
Attorney Says Zapata Had Good Intentions
Daniel Adams, one of Ms. Zapata’s attorneys, claimed his client saw herself as a whistleblower trying to expose vulnerabilities in the voting system and didn’t mean to hurt anyone. He argued her actions were driven by personal and professional stress and were meant to highlight an actual problem. Ms. Zapata claimed she sent the ballots to Ms. Brandtjen because she knew the ballots wouldn’t be cast and to highlight the issue of potential election fraud.“She is the most vocal election fraud politician that I know of, and I thought that maybe this would make her stop and think and redirect her focus away from these outrageous conspiracy theories to something that’s actually real,” Ms. Zapata said.
Ms. Brandtjen has advocated for overturning President Joe Biden’s 2020 win in Wisconsin, insisting there was widespread voter fraud, among other claims. So far, there have been recounts, numerous lawsuits, an audit by the nonpartisan Legislative Audit Bureau, and a review by the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty over the Wisconsin election result. At the moment, these inquiries haven’t found enough instances of misconduct to cause the 2020 election result to be changed.
Assistant District Attorney Matthew Westphal argued that Ms. Zapata went rogue with her actions, and that by not sharing her concerns with state election officials, reporters, or legislators, she broke the law.
“She is not a whistleblower. She’s not exposing information. She’s committing election fraud,” he said during his closing arguments. “As a society we cannot tolerate people who break the law when there are multiple legitimate means to raise those same concerns.”
Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson said in a March 20 statement that in this case, the “jury brought accountability for a serious error.”
“At the time of Zapata’s removal from the Milwaukee’s Election Commission, I said it does not matter that this might have been an effort to expose a vulnerability that state law created,” Mr. Johnson said.
“It does not matter that City of Milwaukee ballots were not part of this. Nor does it matter that there was no attempt to vote illegally or tamper with election results. Fundamentally, the actions were a violation of trust.”
