Lost USB Flash Drive Containing 120,000+ Absentee Votes; Contemporaneous 3:26 AM Ballot Dump of 143,379 Votes (WI)

On election night, Milwaukee Election Commission Deputy Director Kimberly Zapata briefly lost chain of custody of a USB flash drive containing absentee voter data for over 120,000 votes. The flash drive was reported as missing, then recovered, during the period when central count tabulation was active. This loss of custody over the primary electronic storage medium for a substantial portion of Milwaukee’s absentee ballot record occurred contemporaneously with an unexplained ballot dump of 143,379 votes reported at 3:26 AM – a single batch upload that dramatically shifted the reported statewide vote total. The metadata of the flash drive – which would establish whether any write events occurred during the period it was unaccounted for – has not been forensically examined. Significantly, Kimberly Zapata was subsequently convicted of a separate felony – fabricating military absentee ballots – establishing her willingness to commit election fraud and bearing directly on the credibility of any innocent explanation for the flash drive’s temporary loss of custody.