Former Milwaukee election official found guilty over false absentee requests

A jury found former Milwaukee election official Kimberly Zapata guilty of misconduct in public office and fraud over absentee ballots she requested and had sent to state Rep. Janel Brandtjen (R-Menomonee Falls). Zapata had claimed she made the requests in an attempt to highlight vulnerabilities in the absentee ballot system. 

Zapata was charged in November 2022 with one felony count of misconduct in public office and three misdemeanor counts of election fraud. The jury on Wednesday found her guilty of all four counts. Her sentencing hearing is scheduled for May 2 and she faces up to five years in prison. 

Zapata was the deputy director of the Milwaukee Elections Commission when she used her work laptop to request three military absentee ballots using fake names and social security numbers and had them sent to Brandtjen. 

Military personnel do not have to register to vote or provide photo ID to request ballots. Zapata told investigators she was trying to shift the attention of election conspiracy theorists who had been harassing Milwaukee officials to issues she viewed as real problems. During her two-day trial, her attorney said she viewed herself as a whistleblower. 

In his closing argument, Assistant District Attorney Matthew Westphal said that a whistleblower would have brought up concerns in other ways rather than breaking the law. 

“She is not a whistleblower. She’s not exposing information. She’s committing election fraud,” Westphal said during his closing arguments Wednesday morning. “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 statement the jury’s decision Wednesday 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. 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 in the statement. “Fundamentally, the actions were a violation of trust.”