A: 

In the properties of the app.config I had set the build action to Content and the Copy to outputdirectoru to Always Copy. Setting these properties to None and Do not copy made the problem go away while the program still successfully reads and writes from the condfiguration settings. Weird, but OK, it works!

Dabblernl
The config file is deployed as appname.exe.config, which is what the application looks for. If you specifically ask to deploy the app.config file, it will include it as "app.config" instead.
RobinDotNet
if you make this an answer I will accept it!
Dabblernl