Wisconsin lawmaker sues to block the counting of military ballots

A lawsuit was filed on Friday in the state of Wisconsin that seeks to block the counting of military ballots after receiving a series of fakes.

According to The Washington Post, this effort was put into motion by a veterans group and a team of individuals, one of whom is Rep. Janel Brandtjen (R), the chairwoman of the State Assembly’s elections committee.

After an investigation, it was discovered that Kimberly Zapata, deputy director of Milwaukee’s election commission, was responsible for sending the fraudulent ballots, which she claims to have done to prove a point.

Zapata had been employed by the election commission for seven years, according to Wisconsin Public Radio, and told prosecutors that she was trying to alert Brandtjen to a weakness in the voting system that needed to be fixed.

“It is my belief that she was pointing out that you can go onto the public system, make up a person and request the ballot,” says Claire Woodall-Vogg, executive director of the Milwaukee Election Commission.

“This has every appearance of being an egregious, blatant violation of trust,” Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson said during a press conference. “This matter is now in the hands of law enforcement.”

According to Johnson, who was the one to fire Zapata, “the city hasn’t learned of any other violations by Zapata,” but is “looking into the possibility of other misdeeds.”

Zapata has been charged with a felony and three misdemeanors for the fake ballots.

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The Washington Post’s coverage of the suit looking to block the counting of military ballots highlights that “Wisconsin allows military members to cast ballots without registering to vote or providing proof of residency.”

While it’s clear that there is a procedural problem to look into here, area voters are upset that they are now being punished for it as well.

“These are service members defending our country that have the right to vote and their means to vote is by mail,” says Will Attig, director of the Union Veterans Council in a quote to The Washington Post. “We’ve got what to me appears to be an orchestrated plan by election deniers who do not truly support our democracy.”