The No. was held by Kimberly Zapata. In October of this year, she obtained three defense absentee ballots using her government-issued computer, false names, and sham Social Security numbers, according to a criminal problem. State Representative Janel Brandtjen, a fierce opponent of election integrity in the country’s most important battleground state, sent the ballots to the state’s affluent Milwaukee address. They were requested on the state’s MyVote website and delivered with Holly Adams, Holly Jones, and Holly Brandtjen’s names.  ,
Brandtjen claimed she is receiving mail ( including political mailers ) in the name of Holly Adams almost two years after Zapata pulled her illegal scheme and three months after the election official was found guilty of misconduct in office.  ,
Brandtjen revealed to The Federalist on Tuesday that she was surprised to discover a piece of mail addressed to Holly Adams while sorting through her email next year. The senator added that no such personal sits at the mother’s residential Milwaukee house, nor, to the best of her expertise, always has.  ,
Brandtjen initially assumed it to be a” ill joke.” But it’s no accident.  ,
With the assistance of individuals who purchased the state’s voting record — at a bank-busting act of$ 12, 500— Brandtjen said she was able to confirm that” Holly Adams” is vote ID# 701923079, still false and still alive and well in the WisVote structure, the state’s voter registration database and election management system. So are are” Holly Brandtjen” (voter ID# 701923081 ) and” Holly Jones” (voter ID# 701923080 ). The vote comments, viewed by The Federalist, show the sham names, without a voting record, have been inactivated. However, they are being sold along with millions of various prospective voters, and anyone who can order the state’s pricey voter list is presumably not voting.  ,
” What does this say about the safety of our elections? Even after Milwaukee Deputy Clerk Kim Zapata was found guilty of election fraud, the Wisconsin Elections Commission ( WEC ) and the three municipal clerks continued to use these fake military aliases, according to Brandtjen, who released a statement on Tuesday. The senator referred to clerk’s headquarters in South Milwaukee, Shorewood, and Menomonee Falls, from which the defense absentee ballots were sent to the Brandtjen residence just weeks before the 2022 midterm elections.  ,
‘ There’s a Huge Flaw Ok’
Zapata, who was in command of Milwaukee’s early and absentee ballot and voting registration, claimed that she sent the vote to Brandtjen to highlight the security shortcomings in the state’s election system. The senator, who obstinately led a state legislature committee looking into election legislation violations and irregularities in the controversial 2020 election, should expose the flaws, according to Zapata.  ,
Zapata claimed to have “fabricated three people who did not occur” on the MyVote website. She obtained fake names to request military vote abstention from Shorewood, South Milwaukee, and Menomonee Falls provincial clerks. She then had the absentee ballots sent to” Brandtjen.
Brandtjen had, in Zapata’s opinion, raise the issue of the scam. The assistant secretary ended up losing both her work and a criminal record because of her right hunch.  ,
” She was a journalist, she was showing with the fact, with an activity — an imperfect activity, but a truthful activity — what was going on”, Daniel Adams, Zapata’s lawyer, told the jury at her trial.  ,
” There’s a huge flaw here, and if people do n’t take it seriously, some nefarious person will do something bad with this flaw in the system”, Adams said. ” She ( Zapata ) wanted to point that out” . ,
” Bloodless Disregard”
Despite claims from the state’s election regulation that there are numerous safeguards that would prevent fictitious absentee ballots from being counted, Brandtjen and others claim that the system still has a significant weakness.  ,
Brandtjen cited a flagrant disregard for maintaining an accurate voter registration as evidenced by the sham military citizens ‘ presence in the WisVote program.
The program can be updated daily, she said, referring to the ability of local election staff to activate and deactivate voters on the floats even though they are inert and have no voting record. After being implicated in election fraud, these labels are no longer on the inert record. This neglect fosters distrust in the system, and alas, no one will be held responsible for this ineptitude”.
Riley Vetterkind, a spokeswoman for the Wisconsin Elections Commission, explained that third-party organizations frequently obtain vote move data from WEC. That data include names and details of documented and eligible citizens, as well as unsuitable, unregistered voters.  ,
Wisconsin’s municipal staff have the” legal power” to change a politician’s registration standing from active to inactive.
In this instance, local election officials flagged the data as inadmissible, according to Vetterkind in an internet to The Federalist. ” Ineligible files are not registered to vote, would not appear on pollbooks, and never cast a vote in Wisconsin votes”.
He continued, adding that the WisVote system’s election data are not permitted to be destroyed by state law. In this way, list members who are obviously unsuitable, such as the false Holly Adams, continue to be included. The WEC established claims that keeping unsuitable voter data is a” safeguard against voter fraud.”  ,
Election officials can use the voter registration databases to track deaths, felons, people who have been found inept, and to any other means to determine ineligibility or fraudulent activity, according to Vetterkind. ” If unsuitable records are destroyed, election officials may lose a process to evaluate these conditions”. He added that Brandtjen’s mentions in the doctor’s names were “intentionally preserved,” which raises the concern.
According to him, completely removing these voting records would mean removing the evidence of the crime Rep. Brandtjen mentioned in her press release, noting that unsuitable files have been flagged so that local elections officials you view and dismiss them “in the event someone attempts to use them in the future illegally.”
Executive Director of the Milwaukee Election Commission Paulina Gutierrez confirmed that she has no access to the records because they have been inactivated.  ,
” Additionally, no activity can be executed under those records”, she added in an email response to The Federalist.
Gutierrez, who was named deputy elections chief after Zapata was fired, found herself suddenly tapped for the top post in the office in May after the city’s Democrat mayor removed controversial director Claire Woodall, citing “internal” issues. Woodall was at the center of Milwaukee’s election integrity troubles in the 2020 election and the state’s” Zuckbucks” scandal.
Draining Confidence
Elections officials and Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson both agreed that Zapata’s actions were a “violation of trust,” erodeding the public’s already fragile trust in free and fair elections. Yet Wisconsin’s voter rolls are anything but pristine despite elections officials bragging last year that they had removed more than 100, 000 out-of-date voter registrations. The voters only become aware of deactivations after four years of casting a ballot and not returning mailers checking their registration status after the state database sweep is required.  ,
Less than tenth of a percent of the total votes cast in Wisconsin elections are made up of military absentee ballots, according to Wisconsin Elections Commission officials. However, Democrat Joe Biden won the Democratic Party’s contested 2020 presidential election by less than a percentage point, making the result less than a percentage point.  ,
In the Badger State, military personnel are not required to register to vote. To be eligible for an absentee ballot, they simply need to provide their name, address, and birthdate.  ,
Brandtjen claimed that the Republican-controlled state legislature wasted the opportunity to look into problems with the WisVote system by failing to use its subpoena authority to demand accountability for” WEC’s failure to implement a system that validates military ballot requests and also adheres to existing laws.”
In an interview with The Federalist, the lawmaker said,” Our agencies are n’t able to cooperate to give voters the transparency and confidence that these lists are being managed appropriately.”  ,
The Federalist’s senior elections correspondent, Matt Kittle, is. An award-winning investigative reporter and 30-year veteran of print, broadcast, and online journalism, Kittle previously served as the executive director of Empower Wisconsin.
