Northern Wisconsin town accused of breaking the law by pulling voting machines

A complaint filed with the Wisconsin Elections Commission says a town in Rusk County is breaking the law by refusing to make voting machines available to voters with disabilities. Despite a warning from the U.S. Department of Justice, the town allegedly conducted the August primary election using only hand-counted, paper ballots. 

The complaint filed by Disability Rights Wisconsin says the Town of Thornapple violated the federal Help America Vote Act by not making electronic voting machines available to people with disabilities during the April and August primaries. 

“By ceasing to use electronic voting equipment and, instead, exclusively using paper ballots completed and tabulated by hand, Respondents are no longer using voting systems that are accessible for individuals with disabilities in a manner that provides the same opportunity for access and participation (including privacy and independence) as for other voters,” the complaint said.

Disability Rights Wisconsin is asking the Wisconsin Elections Commission to order Thornapple to make accessible voting machines available. DRW Director of Legal and Advocacy Services Kit Kerschensteiner told WPR the goal is to ensure all town residents are able to cast private ballots in the November presidential election. She said voting machines were used without issue in Thornapple before April. 

“This is not the situation of a machine that just isn’t functioning that day at the polling place,” Kerschensteiner said. “This is a place that has chosen specifically, knowing that they were disenfranchising individuals with disabilities, and choosing to go ahead and do that, which we find to be unacceptable.”

Thornapple town board supervisors declined to comment for this story. 

U.S. Department of Justice threatens lawsuit if town continues refusing to use voting machines

A month before Disability Rights Wisconsin filed its complaint, the U.S. Department of Justice sent a letter to officials in the Town of Thornapple and the Town of Lawrence notifying them the DOJ has “authorized the filing of a lawsuit” over the federal violations.

The letter, obtained by Votebeat, said federal investigators determined the towns failed to make “at least one direct recording electronic voting system or other voting system equipped for individuals with disabilities available at each polling place, including during the April 2, 2024, federal primary election.” It said to avoid litigation, town officials could negotiate a “consent decree” with the federal government.

A local resident told Votebeat that Thornapple didn’t use the federally required voting equipment during Wisconsin’s Aug. 13 election either.

In May, Thornapple Town Board Supervisor Tom Zelm told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel the decision to pull voting machines was made in June 2023. Town voter and Rusk County Democratic Party chair Erin Webster told the paper the decision is tied to former President and current GOP nominee Donald Trump’s false claims about the 2020 presidential election being stolen by way of fraud. Webster posted a recording of a phone call purportedly with another member of Thornapple’s board online, where the supervisor said the board believes that “there was a stolen election and the computers have to go because they are full of error.”

Kerschensteiner said her organization is nonpartisan and any concerns “with the sanctity of the counting” of ballots is “beyond what we’re able to do.”

“We just want to make sure that people have that right to vote,” Kerschensteiner said. “I’m sad that it’s gotten to be a partisan issue. It shouldn’t be. It’s a right of citizens, and it’s something that should just be available to all equally with a level playing field.”