Confusion over new legislative district leads to ballot error in northern Wisconsin Assembly primary

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A local election clerk failed to realize that Wisconsin’s new legislative maps moved a rural town into a new district, leading to an administrative error that could disenfranchise scores of voters in a Republican state Assembly primary race.

The new maps shifted Summit, a town of about 1,000 people in Douglas County in far northern Wisconsin, out of the 73rd Assembly District and into the 74th District. Incumbent Chanz Green and former prison guard Scott Harbridge squared off in Tuesday’s primary for the GOP nomination in the 74th District, while Democrats Angela Stroud and John Adams faced each other in a primary in the 73rd.

Voters in Summit received ballots for the primary in the 73rd rather than the primary in the 74th, county clerk Kaci Jo Lundgren announced in a news release early Tuesday afternoon. The mistake means votes in the 73rd primary cast in Summit likely won’t count under state law, Lundgren said. What’s more, no one in Summit could vote for Green or Harbridge in the 74th.

Lundgren, who oversees elections in Douglas County, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview that she reviewed the new legislative boundaries many times but somehow missed that Summit is now in the 74th District.

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