Milwaukee election chief: Former deputy tried to highlight perceived election system gap

The former top Milwaukee election official on trial for using fake names to order military absentee ballots was a hyper-diligent employee who made a naive attempt to redirect attention from conspiracy theories following the 2020 election to what she saw as a true gap in the election system, her onetime boss testified Tuesday.

"This is kind of, I think, what fueled it: She was very adamant about following those procedures and making sure someone wasn’t unintentionally registering as a military voter," Milwaukee Election Commission Executive Director Claire Woodall told the jury in Milwaukee County Circuit Court. "So, she created additional false information, but I think to highlight what she perceived to be a very real vulnerability."

Woodall said ahead of the 2022 midterm elections then-Milwaukee Election Commission deputy director Kimberly Zapata, 47, told Woodall she had sent the ballots to state Rep. Janel Brandtjen, a Republican lawmaker known for embracing conspiracy theories about the 2020 election who had she reported receiving military absentee ballots at her home. The lawmaker reported the ballots came from clerks in Menomonee Falls, where Brandtjen lives, South Milwaukee and Shorewood to three different women with the first name Holly.

Zapata reacted as a "deer in the headlights" when Woodall responded by asking if she knew about Harry Wait, the Racine County man who had been criminally charged after illegally requesting absentee ballots to prove election fraud is possible, Woodall testified.

"My response was, 'Don't you know that this is a crime, that this is horrible? Don't you know about Harry Wait?'" Woodall said.

Zapata is on trial on charges of misconduct in public office, a felony, and three misdemeanor counts of making a false statement to obtain an absentee ballot. She was charged in November 2022.

Her trial started Monday with Assistant District Attorney Matthew Westphal painting Zapata as an official who violated her duty to protect elections.

Defense attorney Daniel Adams argued she was an apolitical "whistleblower" seeking to flag a gap in the election system and someone "extremely stressed out" by the conspiracy theories and threats targeting election officials.

Zapata served as deputy director from July until the end of October 2022, Woodall said. She had worked in the Election Commission before she was promoted to deputy.

In the deputy position, Zapata would take additional steps to ensure that voters had correctly registered using military status, Woodall said.

Woodall agreed under questioning by Westphal that entering false information into the election system would not make elections more secure but also said that the ballot requests were entered through the state's public-facing MyVote system, which Zapata would not typically access as part of her official duties.

She said under cross-examination that she did not believe that Zapata was acting in her official capacity when she requested the ballots from her home in the early morning hours of Oct. 25, 2022.

Woodall testified that when Zapata told her that she had ordered the ballots, Zapata said she had previously raised concerns to Woodall about the process for obtaining military ballots via the state’s MyVote.WI.gov website.

“She was frustrated that people like Rep. Brandtjen continue to focus on what they consider election fraud issues that aren’t real and that this is a real potential security issue that she wanted to bring to her attention,” Woodall said.

Woodall also testified to the challenges Zapata was facing personally after her brother's unexpected death and the threats the office had started receiving in August 2021 based on an article on a national conservative media website.

The threats came in writing and in voicemails but also included a threatening letter that Woodall received at her home, she testified. Those threats prompted the city to increase security in the Election Commission office, including installing shatter-proof glass and changing the office layout to create an emergency exit that couldn't be blocked by someone at the front counter.

And, in a separate public records lawsuit, a litigant introduced a handwritten drawing of the Election Commission office, including labels denoting where each person sat, Woodall said. That prompted additional conversations with law enforcement about security protocols.

"It certainly was felt by me as kind of a very passive threat," she said. "Identifying where each person sat felt very much like a blueprint for anyone who was to be an intruder in our office."

In other cases, direct threats have been investigated by the FBI and the Milwaukee Police Department, she said. Those included one that said Woodall and her staff should be put in front of a firing squad, Woodall testified.

The handwritten threat delivered to Woodall's home caused her to leave the state, she said.

As part of her job, Zapata was charged with monitoring the email inbox where many of these threatening messages arrived.

The office was targeted, Woodall said, based on misinformation and disinformation on websites like the one where the article appeared in August 2021 and perpetuated by state legislators like Brandtjen "continuing to speak falsehoods," Woodall said.

While the conspiracy theories and threats had subsided by October 2022, Woodall said there was still a lot of misinformation that creates assumptions and accusations on the parts of voters who email the Election Commission using the inbox Zapata monitored.

Zapata's trial will continue this week.

Alison Dirr can be reached at [email protected].

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Milwaukee election chief says ex-deputy wanted to expose gap in system