If Kimberly Zapata (photo, left) intended to demonstrate it’s easy to commit voting fraud, she failed miserably.
All she accomplished was getting herself fired from her job as deputy director of the Milwaukee Elections Commission.
Zapata had been a city employee about 10 years, but was promoted to that position only a couple months ago — and, it appears, immediately abused her new authority.
She’s accused of obtaining three military absentee ballots under false pretenses, then sending them to a GOP state legislator, Janel Brandtjen (photo, right), a promoter of voting conspiracy theories.
A few days before the election, their motive became clear: Brandtjen filed a lawsuit to prevent military votes from being counting, arguing military ballots aren’t secure.
Stealing ballots isn’t easy, it’s hard; they were caught, and may be criminally charged (see stories here and here). What they did is akin to handing a robbery note to a bank teller, not to rob the bank, but only show it’s easy to do — and getting taken down by cops at the door because the alarm system worked. People go to jail for such stunts.
Putting it another way, Republicans are committing election crimes to “prove” that election crimes are being committed. For example, in Michigan and Georgia, GOP officials and operatives have been caught tampering with voting machines in a snipe hunt for “proof” of election fraud (see stories here and here).
This scheme is more invidious. These individuals are attempting to use their own fraudulent acts as an excuse to disenfranchise legitimate voters. I hope a judge throws the proverbial book at them.