Last updated: October 2026
The Price County Board of Canvassers met Aug. 17 to review the returns from the Aug. 11 partisan primary, working through municipal tallies race by race before certifying the results.
Quick Answer: The Board of Canvassers met Aug. 17, 2026 to canvass the Aug. 11 partisan primary returns, reviewing results municipality by municipality across county and state races. During the review, a canvasser explained that write-in votes cast for a candidate of another party, such as a Republican written onto a Democratic ticket, are recorded as scattering rather than as votes for that candidate. The canvass certified the returns without altering the primary outcomes.
The meeting was procedural, but the scattering explanation answers a question that recurs every election: what happens to a write-in that names a real candidate who isn’t on that ballot line.
What does the Board of Canvassers do?
The board reviews the election returns submitted by each municipality and reconciles them against the county’s totals before certifying.
Members worked through returns one municipality at a time, reading results for each office in sequence: governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, secretary of state, state treasurer, state senator, representative to Assembly, sheriff, coroner, and clerk of circuit court.
The board checked party columns separately, including Constitution, Libertarian, and Democratic lines, confirming that races with no candidate on a given ballot returned zeros.
What is “scattering”?
A canvasser raised it directly while reviewing write-ins in the sheriff’s race.
Voters had written the Republican candidate’s name on the Democratic ticket. Those are not counted as votes for that candidate. They are recorded as scattering.
“Most of the writings that we had for sheriff where they wrote the Republican candidate on the Democratic ticket,” a canvasser said, “and those are considered scattering.”
Why it matters
Scattering is the bucket for write-in marks that don’t resolve to a valid vote for a candidate on that ballot line. It keeps the totals honest: a voter who writes a name across party lines has their ballot counted, but not as a vote in a race that candidate isn’t running in on that ticket.
In a primary, that distinction shapes the arithmetic. A cross-party write-in can look like support in a raw tally while adding nothing to the candidate’s official total.
Did the canvass change any results?
No.
The board’s review confirmed the returns already reported from the Aug. 11 primary. In the sheriff’s race, Robert Hawn’s margin over Waldemar Madsen was large enough that no canvass adjustment could alter the outcome.
Price County published those unofficial results before the canvass. This meeting made them official.
What happens next
Certified primary results move to the November general election ballot. The canvass closed with members noting they would see each other again in November.
Voters who cast a write-in for a candidate of another party should know their ballot was counted, just not toward that candidate. That is the rule, applied the same way in every county in Wisconsin.
Price County has tracked its election administration closely this year, from the sheriff primary results to the 2026 election guide covering every race.
Weather and election dates both shape what happens here.
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See also: our guide to Price County public records
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FAQ
What is a board of canvassers?
The body that reviews and reconciles election returns from each municipality, then certifies the county’s results. In Price County it met Aug. 17, 2026 for the Aug. 11 partisan primary.
What does scattering mean in an election?
Scattering is the category for write-in marks that don’t count as a vote for a candidate on that ballot line. A voter writing a Republican candidate’s name on a Democratic ticket, for example, is recorded as scattering rather than as a vote for that candidate.
Did the canvass change the sheriff’s race result?
No. The canvass certified the Aug. 11 returns. Robert Hawn’s margin over Waldemar Madsen was too large for any canvass adjustment to change the outcome.
When is the general election?
November 2026. Certified primary results determine who appears on that ballot.
Sources
- Price County WI Government — Board of Canvassers Meeting, Aug. 17, 2026 (video)
- Price County Fun — Robert Hawn Wins Price County Sheriff Primary (Sept. 1, 2026)
- Price County Fun — 2026 Election Guide