A Milwaukee County jury recently found a former election official guilty of election fraud involving absentee ballots last year. Former deputy director of the Milwaukee Election Commission Kimberly Zapata was also found guilty of felony misconduct in public office.
Reportedly, Zapata, 47, employed a fake name to request military absentee ballots before sending them to the home of Republican state Rep. Janel Brandtjen, an outspoken critic of election fraud. According to prosecutors, Zapata had committed fraud and violated the public’s trust. However, her attorney argued she was a “whistleblower.”
As deputy director, Zapata was in charge of early voting, absentee voting, and voter registration for the city of Milwaukee. However, the city fired her and charged her with the crimes brought against her in November 2022. Zapata was sentenced to 12 months probation for election fraud in May of last year. She will also have to pay a $3k fine and complete 120 hours of community service.
Atiba Ellis, a law professor at Case Western Reserve University School of Law, described the case as “rare” and almost “unheard of.” She said, “Ordinarily, election administrators who see flaws in systems raise those flaws and those become the object of legislation. But for an election administrator to undertake the act of requesting a fake ballot in order to prove that election fraud can happen is simply unheard of.”
Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson reacted to the guilty verdict, claiming it brought accountability. “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. 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,” Johnson said. “Fundamentally, the actions were a violation of trust.”
Milwaukee Assistant District Attorney Matthew Westphal stated that Zapata’s actions were “an attack on our electoral system.” He added, “Accusations of election fraud have literally led to violence and a violent insurrection in Washington, D.C. That’s kind of the behavior we’re looking at here on the spectrum. That’s where we end up when we have people that are violating their duties, and that are putting forth this false information.”
Zapata’s attorney Daniel Adams slammed the assertion comparing his client to the rioters. “The paradox is that my client — being such a stickler for rules and procedure and fairness and equality in the electoral system — sought to, I call it whistleblowing, but just point a lantern at what she saw as something that was not a fair aspect, a very small flaw, but a flaw indeed, in this ballot request issue,” Adams said.
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Zapata expressed remorse for her actions, which she claims “stemmed from a complete emotional breakdown.” She said, “When someone uses my name, I want them to think of good qualities and the good things I have done. I don’t wish to be forever attached to what I did in that eight-minute window of my life.”