Federal judge orders northern Wisconsin town to bring back voting machines in future elections

federal judge has ordered the Rusk County Town of Thornapple to resume using electronic voting machines after the town’s board switched to hand-counting paper ballots in two elections this year. The order says the town violated federal law aimed at making voting easier for people with disabilities.

A preliminary injunction issued Friday by Chief U.S. District Judge James Peterson for Wisconsin’s Western District, states that the town’s clerk and three-member board of supervisors violated the Help America Vote Act, or HAVA, by failing to provide at least one “voting system equipped for individuals with disabilities” at its single polling place in the April 2 and Aug. 13 elections.

According to court documents, the town’s former clerk Suzanne Pinnow cited “the controversial nature of electronic voting machines” during a June 2023 town board meeting as part of the justification for moving to hand-counted, paper ballots. Meeting minutes show she also claims that municipalities with “less than 7,000 voters” are “not required” to use the voting machines.

The injunction stems from a joint agreement between U.S. investigators and Thornapple officials in which the town agreed to provide one electronic voting machine at the town’s sole polling place, and that the “voting system is, for the full period that the polling place is required to be open under Wisconsin State law, plugged into a functioning electrical outlet, turned on, and readily visible and accessible to voters.”



https://www.wpr.org/news/fedeal-judge-orders-thornapple-wisconsin-voting-machines-future-elections