In November, 2022, Milwaukee Elections Commission Deputy Director Kimberly Zapata made the news for being accused of committing election fraud. Specifically, she was charged with one felony count of misconduct of office and three counts of election fraud, when she used a city computer to fraudulently request three military absentee ballots under fictitious names.
On Wednesday, after a three-day hearing, Zapata was convicted, which is not surprising. She did not testify in her defense, nor did she call any witnesses. Via her attorney, Daniel Adams, she tried to claim stress from harassment from election deniers and to act as a whistle blower:
"What did she tell us? She told us that she fabricated three individuals for the purpose of having ballots issued, that she did this on her laptop, in a computer issued by the city, that she did this using the WisVote system to gain the address that she had the ballot sent to," Westphal told the jury.
Zapata's attorney, Daniel Adams, said she was serving as a whistleblower--highlighting loopholes in the Wisconsin electoral system.
"Kim Zapata's acts were driven by stress; they were not perfect in any way," he said. "What she did was act to illuminate a gap between the American ideal of a perfect democracy and the facts as they are, which is there is a gap, a flaw, in Wisconsin's electoral system. That's it."
However, intent is not a factor and the only thing that mattered was she broke the law. Ironically, she also failed to be a whistleblower as that the system worked as it was supposed to. And for all her effort the only things she can show for it is up to $13,000 in fines and/or five years in prison.
