From State v. Zapata, decided May 12, by Wisconsin Court of Appeals Judge Sara Geenen, joined by Chief Judge Joseph Donald and Judge Pedro Colón (for more on the specific whistleblower argument, see this Courthouse News Service article [Destiny DeVooght]):
[T]he State charged {the Deputy Director of the City of Milwaukee Election Commission, Kimberly D. Zapata} with misconduct in public office (acting in excess of lawful authority) and three counts of making a false statement to obtain an absentee ballot….
[T]hrough the "MyVote website," [Zapata] "fabricated three individuals who did not exist, … used those fabricated names to have military voter absentee requests sent to the municipal clerks in Shorewood, South Milwaukee, and Menomonee Falls," and then "had the absentee ballots sent to" the state legislator. Zapata wanted to "make a point that there is fraud in existence" and have the legislator "focus" on "actual true fraud[.]" {Per the trial testimony, the MyVote website is a public-facing voter portal available in Wisconsin, wherein voters can request an absentee ballot, view their voting records and registration information, look up their polling place, and view a sample ballot.} Zapata acknowledged using her work laptop and accessing a "voter registration database" that is "only available to the municipality employees" in order to obtain the legislator's address….
Prior to the fall 2022 election, Zapata became concerned about the process for requesting military absentee ballots. Because a person requesting a military absentee ballot on the MyVote website did not need to provide photo identification or be registered to vote to make the request, Zapata felt that the process was susceptible to fraud. Zapata raised this concern with her supervisor and with the Wisconsin Elections Commission, to no avail.
Frustrated with public criticism of her office and by conspiracy theories about election fraud, Zapata wanted "the truth to come out" about "actual problems" with elections. Using her work laptop in the early morning hours of October 25, 2022, she accessed the MyVote website and requested military absentee ballots in the names of three fake individuals: Holly Jones, Holly Adams, and Holly Brandtjen. Zapata looked up random home addresses in South Milwaukee, Shorewood, and Menomonee Falls, and assigned one to each fake name. She chose residences in South Milwaukee and Shorewood because she felt these areas had "subpar" municipal clerks who would not catch the fraud.
Zapata requested that each ballot be sent to the home of a state legislator because the legislator was "the most vocal election fraud politician" that she knew. To locate the legislator's address, Zapata logged into "WisVote," which is a statewide voter registration database only accessible to "employees who are responsible for administering elections." Zapata hoped that the municipal clerks would issue the ballots and that when the legislator received them, the legislator would "redirect … her focus away from … outrageous conspiracy theories to something that's actually real." …
