RACINE, United States — A Wisconsin jury has convicted a man of election fraud and identity theft after he requested absentee ballots in the names of two public officials without their consent, authorities said.
Jurors in Racine County on Tuesday, March 24, 2026, found Harry Wait, 71, guilty of two misdemeanor counts of election fraud and one felony count of identity theft following a two-day trial. He was acquitted of a second identity theft charge.
Prosecutors said Wait sought ballots belonging to Robin Vos, a Republican, and Cory Mason, a Democrat, without authorisation.
Wait has said he acted to demonstrate weaknesses in Wisconsin’s voter registration system. In 2022, he acknowledged requesting the ballots and said he expected legal consequences.
“You got to expect to pay some costs sometimes when you are trying to work for the public good,” Wait told The Associated Press at the time.
Following the verdict, he told a Milwaukee television station that he would repeat his actions. “I tested the system and the system failed,” he said.
Wait leads a group that promotes claims that elections in Wisconsin are affected by widespread fraud and that Donald Trump won the 2020 presidential election.
Official results show that Trump lost Wisconsin by about 21,000 votes.
Wait faces a possible prison sentence of up to six years on the felony conviction, as well as up to one year in jail for each of the misdemeanor counts.
A sentencing date has not yet been scheduled.
His attorney, Joe Bugni, did not respond to a request for comment on whether an appeal would be filed.
The conviction follows a similar case in 2024 involving a former Milwaukee election official, Kimberly Zapata, who was found guilty of misconduct in office after obtaining military absentee ballots using false identities.
Zapata said she had been attempting to expose vulnerabilities in the election system. She was fined $3,000 and placed on probation for one year.
