Kimberly Zapata, former deputy director of the Milwaukee Election Commission, was found guilty of election fraud after obtaining military absentee ballots through her work laptop in 2022.
The jury also found Zapata guilty of misconduct in public office. The election official then sent the ballots to the home of Rep. Janel Brandtjen, a Republican state lawmaker, who was calling for decertification of Biden’s victory in Wisconsin.
Active military personnel are not required to register to vote or provide photo identification to acquire absentee ballots in Wisconsin.
Zapata requested the fake military absentee ballots through the My Vote Wisconsin website on the morning of Oct. 25, 2022. Meanwhile, clerks in Menomonee Falls, Shorewood, and South Milwaukee mailed the ballots without double-checking the information. Zapata accessed Brandtjen’s home address by logging in using her municipal login credentials.
Rep. Brandtjen received the ballots addressed to Holly Brandtjen, Holly Jones, and Holly Adams. After receiving them, the lawmaker contacted authorities and the media.
The former election official said that she intends to expose flaws in the voting system as conspiracy theorists bombarded her office with death threats.
During the hearing, the executive director of the Milwaukee Election Commission, Claire Woodall, confirmed and testified under oath that her office was being threatened by people who believed the 2020 presidential election was rigged
Woodall added that she believes Zapata did the act to “highlight to the conspirators what a real potential security concern would be.”
Daniel Adams, Zapata’s lawyer, emphasized that she acted as a whistleblower and did not intend to hurt anyone.
“She was a whistleblower; she was showing the truth with an action—an imperfect action, but a truthful action—what was going on,” Adams told the jury Wednesday.
“There’s a huge flaw here, and if people don’t take it seriously, some nefarious person will do something bad with this flaw in the system,” Adams said. “She (Zapata) wanted to point that out.”
The former election official will be sentenced on May 2. She is expected to face three and a half years in prison, a $10,000 penalty for a felony, and another six months in jail for every election fraud charge against her.
Similar to her case, Harry Wait, a racist who requested and received absentee ballots using the names of legislators and local officials in July, will face 13 years in prison if found guilty of two misdemeanor counts of election fraud and two felony counts of identity theft.
Just one state of many with election fraud jeopardizing our voting integrity
Democrat or Republican should be in prisioned for election fraud.. or interference of any election..
There will never be a fair election in America until we require one to produce a valid ID and be properly registered to vote . Also the only people that should be allowed to use absentee voting is our military people .