Milwaukee Official Charged After Fake Military Ballots: Complaint

MILWAUKEE, WI — The deputy director for the Milwaukee Election Commission is facing criminal charges after she had three fake military ballots sent to a Republican politician in Waukesha, according to a criminal complaint.

Kimberly Zapata now faces a charge of felony misconduct in office plus three charges of election fraud, online court records showed. The city fired Zapata after she requested the ballots, Mayor Cavalier Johnson announced Thursday. The ballots were sent to State Rep. Janel Brandtjen of Waukesha.

Rep. Brandtjen said she received the ballots on Oct. 27. She said she believed it was a citizen trying to reveal problems with the state's voting system. Upon receiving the ballots, Brandtjen said she handed them off to Waukesha authorities and that she contacted Michael Gableman, the former conservative Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice who led a 14-month-long investigation into the 2020 election without finding evidence of fraud.

Zapata said she randomly chose addresses from three suburban Milwaukee County municipalities for the ballots and then requested them through local clerks to the politician's address, the complaint said. Zapata told investigators it was in an effort to redirect the politician's focus away from "outrageous conspiracy theories and to something that is actually real," according to the complaint.

Zapata accessed the politician's address from a state voter registration database administered by the Wisconsin Elections Commission which is only accessible by municipal employees, the complaint said. She then requested the ballots through Wisconsin's online voter registration website — myvote.wi.gov — using a section that gives military voters special provisions to get their ballot, according to the complaint.

The ballots that were sent were not connected to any person who actually exists, the criminal complaint said.

Zapata told investigators that she felt overwhelmed because of threats of violence received by the Election Commission, the complaint said. She said she wanted the truth to come out so that they could focus on the actual problems, according to the complaint.

The bipartisan Wisconsin Election Commission, the state's top election agency, said in a news release on Thursday that it doesn't believe any other ballots were affected.

“While the actions of this individual set us all back in our efforts to show Wisconsinites that our elections are run with integrity, I have every confidence the upcoming election will be fair and accurate,” said Wisconsin Elections Commission Administrator Meagan Wolfe in the agency's release.

“While this case understandably will receive a lot of attention, the fact remains that election fraud is extremely rare, and when it does occur, it is quickly discovered, and there are consequences," Wolfe said. “This lone individual’s actions do not in any way reflect the high level of integrity that the rest of our local election officials – your friends, neighbors, and relatives – bring to their jobs every single day."

While the state's top election commission said it was open to working with the Legislature to confront any issues, it also pointed out several safeguards in place to prevent false military ballots from being counted, including that:

• "Military voters are required to list a valid Wisconsin residential address for their absentee ballot request."
• "If an absentee ballot of a military voter is sent to an address other than the voter’s residential address (and the mailing address isn’t listed on the voter’s registration form), the WEC has sent a postcard to the residential address to notify the voter of the absentee ballot request and provide them the opportunity to notify officials if they did not make the request. In Thursday’s case, a state representative notified law enforcement officials of the irregular ballots."
• "Local and state election officials may check up on individuals requesting military ballots be sent to a location other than a military facility in order to ensure the ballot was properly issued."
• "Local and state election officials monitor our systems for irregular absentee ballot requests."

See also: WI's Top Election Commission Confident In Midterms After Milwaukee Official Fired

Mayor Johnson on Thursday said the ordeal has "every appearance of being an egregious, blatant violation of trust," in a statement to Twitter.

"I will not accept, I will not tolerate, and I certainly will not defend any misrepresentation by a city official involved in elections," Johnson, a Democrat, wrote. "It does not matter that this might have been an effort to expose a vulnerability that state law created."

In response to Zapata's firing on Thursday, Brandtjen said "We have uncovered so many issues that demand attention. I have been attacked by the liberal media, democrats who benefit from the system, and republicans who don’t have the backbone to take on the issues, including Speaker Vos, who has referred to me as a conspiracy theorist."

Brandtjen also claimed "we have uncovered massive amounts of election disparities," and claimed that the statewide Election Commission has broken the law on "numerous occasions."

Read the full criminal complaint against Zapata below:

SEE ALSO:

Milwaukee Election Official Fired After 'Fictitious' Ballots: Mayor

Sheriff Investigating After Waukesha Rep. Mailed Military Ballots

The Associated Press contributed to this report.