Clerks in the state are scrambling to assign voters to the right districts after last summer’s redrawing of legislative maps, with changes to the process putting voters in incorrect locations across town or even across the Atlantic Ocean. The problems could add to the confusion for voters who may already be affected by the redistricting law approved by legislators last summer. Primaries for spring races are being held on Feb. 21, leaving little time to sort out the problems. The errors affect thousands of voters around the state and stem from different sources, including inaccuracies in U.S. Census Bureau data and problems with a new way of assigning voters to districts in a state database.
“We’re not only changing and moving districts, we’re changing the system beneath it,” said Julie Glancey, the Sheboygan County clerk. “We had many, many voters who showed up (on the computer map) on the coast of Africa and we had to drag them back to the state of Wisconsin and put them where they belonged.”
State elections officials said they were trying to help clerks resolve the problems. They hope to fix the issues by the Feb. 21 election, but if they don’t, some voters could wind up at the wrong polling place – or find that they don’t appear on the polling list at their correct polling place. In that case, they would have to work with election officials to fix the situation.
Full Article: Glitch puts some Wisconsin voters in Africa – JSOnline.