OK, if they plead no contest, does that make them eligble for federal election tampering charges?
I'm not sure you can tie slashing tires to election tampering, even if you know that the tires were on vans which were going to be used to transport voters to the polls.
If you slashed the tires while they were picking up voters, such that a voter in the van no longer had access to the polls, you'd have a stronger case.
This was a "simple" vandalism case in state court.
Dunno. Seems to me if federal charges were possible those would have been the first charges. OTOH all elections in Milwaukee are subject to the city's election commission so who knows.