A late-breaking complaint is shaking up a relatively sleepy Milwaukee County Board race, with incumbent Supervisor Kathleen Vincent asking prosecutors to crack down on what she calls outright lies in her opponent’s campaign mailers.
The complaint, filed this week with the Milwaukee County District Attorney, targets District 11 challenger Ryan Antczak over literature that claims Vincent skipped nearly half of the meetings taxpayers fund and that she “admits she struggles juggling three jobs.” With voters set to cast ballots on Tuesday, April 7, Vincent wants the DA to investigate whether those attacks crossed the legal line.
Attorney Michael Maistelman submitted the complaint on March 25 to the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s office on Vincent’s behalf, alleging Antczak “knowingly or with reckless disregard” pushed statements that are “demonstrably false,” as reported by Urban Milwaukee. Citing public records, the filing says Vincent’s attendance rate was 92% in 2022, 83% in 2023, 88% in 2024, 88% in 2025 and 100% so far in 2026, and labels the mailer’s claims “fabricated.” Antczak declined to comment on the new complaint.
Antczak is no stranger to controversy. In 2024 he was knocked off a county ballot after submitting nomination papers with the wrong paperwork and later that year pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor for distributing false campaign literature during a city council race, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported. That earlier conviction, combined with the fresh complaint, has put his campaign tactics under a brighter spotlight this time around.
Vincent, the sitting supervisor in District 11, represents Greenfield, Greendale and part of southwest Milwaukee. She won the seat in 2022 and also serves on the Greendale School Board while working as a teacher in the Kenosha Unified School District, according to WUWM. Their face-off is one of only three contested county board races this spring, which has ramped up neighborhood-level attention on Vincent’s record and Antczak’s line of attack.
Legal implications
Wisconsin law makes it illegal to knowingly publish a false representation about a candidate if it “tends to affect voting at an election,” a ban spelled out in Wis. Stat. §12.05 and summarized by Justia. The complaint asks the DA to investigate whether Antczak’s mailers violated that statute and, according to Urban Milwaukee, says he could face three misdemeanor counts if prosecutors decide the law was broken.
What comes next
The Milwaukee County District Attorney’s office will now decide whether to open a formal investigation and potentially file charges, a process that could unfold either just before or shortly after next Tuesday’s election. Local reporting notes that all 18 county board seats are on the April 7 ballot, but only a handful are competitive, making District 11 one of the races to watch this cycle.
For the moment, Vincent’s camp has formally requested an investigation, while Antczak has stayed silent publicly beyond declining to discuss the filing. The DA’s office has not yet announced any action, and any move to charge will require prosecutors to weigh the complaint’s evidence against the broad protections given to political speech under state and federal law.
