The lawsuit, filed Friday, was filed by a group of veterans and three individuals, including Rep. Janel Brandtjen (R), the chairwoman of the State Assembly’s election committee. Last week, Brandtjen received three military ballots with fictitious names allegedly sent to her by Kimberly Zapata, a Milwaukee elections official. Election officials criticized Brandtjen for spreading false claims about the system, and Zapata later told prosecutors she was trying to alert Brandtjen to a real weakness in the state’s election system that needed to be addressed. Unlike most states, Wisconsin allows members of the military to vote without registering to vote or providing proof of residency. Military ballots make up a small fraction of the vote in Wisconsin — about 1,400 so far for Tuesday’s election. Brandtjen and the others are using the incident to argue that military ballots should not be counted unless election officials can prove they are complying with a state law requiring them to maintain lists of all eligible military voters. Brandtjen’s attorney, Erick Kaardal of the conservative Thomas More Society, said state officials handled the election in a way that “is conducive to voter fraud.” Will Atig, director of the Union Veterans Council, expressed concern about the effort to prevent military ballots from being counted. “These are members of the military who defend our country and are eligible to vote, and their means of voting is by mail,” he said. “We have what appears to me to be an orchestrated scheme by election deniers who don’t really support our democracy.”
