Marcey Patterson, a former Community Relations Engagement and Recruitment Director for the Milwaukee Police Department (MPD), has been slapped with a felony election fraud charge after investigators discovered she voted illegally in at least 12 separate elections while living outside the city she claimed as her residence.
Court documents obtained by Spectrum News 1 show Patterson hadn’t lived in Milwaukee since 2018, yet she continued to cast ballots in city elections through 2025, all while listing her mother’s Milwaukee address on her registration forms.
Even worse, she used that false address to illegally pocket thousands in taxpayer-funded residency pay incentives from the police department.
Patterson, hired in 2022, was entitled to a 3% residency pay boost, but only if she actually lived in Milwaukee. She didn’t.
Records confirm she lived in Glendale and later in Brown Deer, yet she knowingly pocketed $8,226.78 in inflated paychecks based on the fraudulent claim.
Despite living outside the city, Patterson kept showing up at the Samuel Clemens School polling station in Milwaukee, signing her name in the poll books for election after election, including the November 2024 and April 2025 contests.
Detectives later confirmed that her official voter registration listed a Milwaukee residence she hadn’t lived at in years.
During the investigation, Complainant obtained a copy of Patterson’s most recent Wisconsin Voter Registration Application. She filed out that application on June 29, 2024. This application was submitted to an election official. In that application, she listed her residence as follows:
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As part of that application, the voter must check a box relating to their residency. That box states:
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Further, the application requires that the voter provide proof of residency. The applications indicates that Patterson provided a copy of her Wisconsin Driver’s License to prove her residence. Patterson then signed a certification that stated:
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As noted above, this was a false statement. Patterson did not reside at the North 40th Street address and had not resided there for several years.
By her own admissions in the residence forms filled with MPD, Patterson had not lived in the City of Milwaukee since 2018. By making these assertions, Patterson falsely procured registration in Milwaukee by making false statements to an election official.
In addition to falsely registering, Patterson voted in multiple elections while lacking the necessary residency qualifications. Complainant reviewed records from the City of Milwaukee Elections Commission, as well as the MyVote.wi.gov website.
Those records showed that, since March of 2018 when she moved out of the City of Milwaukee, Patterson has voted in 12 elections at a City of Milwaukee Polling location. Those records showed that Patterson voted in the following elections:
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In particular, Complainant was able to review a copy of the signed pollbook used at the Samuel Clemens polling location (3600 West Hope Ave, City and County of Milwaukee) for the November 2024 election and the April 2025 election.
Those pollbooks both show Patterson’s name, signature, address, and voter number for the November 2024 and April 2025 elections.
A review of the MyVote website further shows that Patterson voted at the Samuel Clemens polling location in both of those elections on November 5, 2024, and on April 1, 2025.
At the time of each of those elections, Patterson lacked the necessary residency requirements to vote. During both of those elections, Patterson was residing in Brown Deer. As such, her appropriate voting location would’ve been a Brown Deer location.
When confronted, Patterson admitted she used her mother’s address as her “permanent residence,” but also conceded that her real home, the one where she slept, worked, and raised her son was outside the city. Yet she kept voting in Milwaukee anyway.
Under Wisconsin law, voting without proper residency qualifications is a felony punishable by up to 3.5 years in prison and a $10,000 fine. Patterson also faces consequences for falsely registering to vote and making false statements to election officials.
