Background: Former President Donald Trump spoke at a rally in Waukesha, Wis. on Friday, Aug. 5, 2022. (AP Photo/Morry Gash, File)/Inset: Former election official Kimberly Zapata appeared in court this week, in Milwaukee County Circuit Court. YouTube screengrab Fox affiliate WITI.
A Wisconsin election official believed she was simply trying to highlight flaws in the voting system when she sent three military absentee ballots with false information to a Trump-supporting state lawmaker. She has been convicted of felony misconduct in office and three misdemeanor fraud charges by a jury.
The jury reached its decision in State of Wisconsin vs. Kimberly Zapata on Wednesday, according to a review of the online public docket for the Milwaukee County Circuit Court.
Initially charged in 2022, state prosecutors accused Zapata, who was then the deputy director for the Milwaukee Election Commission, of using a work computer in October to access the site, My Vote Wisconsin. From there, she obtained three ballots for military absentee voters. The ballots were sent to clerks in three towns and contained false information, including added voter names and Social Security numbers.
Zapata then utilized her credentials as the deputy director for the city’s election commission to access a database and find the home address for Wisconsin State Rep. Janel Brandtjen, a Republican lawmaker who has claimed, without evidence, that President Joe Biden lost Wisconsin to Donald Trump. Trump endorsed Brandtjen’s unsuccessful state senate campaign in 2023.
At trial this week, a recording was played for the jury where Zapata admitted that she did not intend to carry out an illegal scheme by manipulating the absentee ballots and sending them to Brandtjen.
Instead, Zapata stated that she was tired of election misinformation spreading quickly. Zapata stated that her workplace had been receiving threats from voters who believed that the 2020 presidential election was full of fraud, including threats suggesting she and other officials should be put in front of a firing squad. Her boss testified that she had relocated because of the threats.
Zapata’s supervisor testified at trial and supported this, according to ABC affiliate WISN.
For her, it was about proving there was a legitimate loophole in the absentee ballot system that could be exploited, Zapata’s attorneys argued. But prosecutors rejected that completely, arguing that her so-called experiment was illegitimate.
“She is not a whistleblower. She’s not exposing information. She’s committing election fraud. As a society we cannot tolerate people who break the law when there are multiple legal means to raise those same concerns,” Assistant District Attorney Matthew Westphal said during closing arguments, according to The Associated Press.
Zapata said she confessed to her then-supervisor and now the current Milwaukee Election Commission Executive Director Claire Woodall that she sent the fake ballots. This happened just as Rep. Brandtjen had gone public about receiving them, Woodall said.
During the trial, Woodall stated that Zapata was upset because Representative Brandtjen was focusing on election fraud issues that are not real.
When she was initially accused, Zapata declared that she did not do what she was accused of.
In response to that accusation, Rep. Brandtjen released a statement, as reported by WISN. The lawmaker suggested that if Zapata wanted to raise these concerns, she could have done so anonymously by contacting the proper authorities rather than risking her job and reputation.
Nobody has stepped forward to address the problem that Zapata said she was trying to expose in the first place.
Zapata's sentencing is scheduled for May 2. She could potentially face up to five years in prison.
Her lawyer did not immediately reply to a request for comment on Thursday.
Meanwhile, Brandtjen is dealing with legal issues of her own.
WisPolitics It was first reported last month that the Wisconsin Ethics Commission recommended prosecutors pursue felony charges against her and a joint fundraising committee for Donald Trump, known as the Save America Joint Fundraising Committee.
The commission claimed that she and the committee conspired to violate campaign finance laws to remove the Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, following Vos’ efforts to discredit Trump's claims of widespread voter fraud in the state.
Brandtjen did not immediately respond to Law&Crime’s request for comment on the findings.