When Shirley Doheny ran for Hampton Town Clerk in 2019, her slogan was “Experience Matters.”
Apparently, she was right.
The Hampton town clerk is looking for a new gig after a damning report issued by the election law unit of the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office outlined her inability to handle the basic duties of her office. She repeatedly mishandled ballots in elections dating back to the First in the Nation presidential primary in January.
The infractions were so egregious, the attorney general forced Doheny to resign from her position as clerk.
“Your actions demonstrate that you are not able to carefully and lawfully administer elections, administer the absentee voting process, and secure election records,” Assistant Attorney General Brendan O’Donnell wrote in a scathing letter demanding her resignation. “Your actions are not acceptable and unfair to the citizens of Hampton, who trust that their election officials will properly follow all election laws.”
An investigation determined that on Doheny’s watch, staffers failed to provide an affidavit envelope in absentee ballot mailings to 79 presidential primary voters.
After contacting Secretary of State David Scanlan’s office, Doheny agreed to contact the affected voters. But according to the investigation, “between 10 and 25 of these affected voters returned absentee ballots without the required affidavit envelope,” rendering them unlawful.
Doheny later compounded the problem by directing the deputy clerk to deliver the invalid absentee ballots to their respective polling locations. The investigation found Doheny “proceeded to cast those 10-25 absentee ballots” without informing Town Moderator Bob Casassa.”
The investigation further determined that during the town elections in March, Doheny’s office failed to spot ballot printing errors, used improperly sealed ballot boxes, and in one instance, directed voters to choose no more than one school committee candidate when they should have been given the option of no more than two.
Casassa was also named in the investigation after he “broke the seal” on canvas bags that held ballot-counting equipment “in the presence of the deputy moderator and a few feet away from you.”
Casassa then apparently failed to include the incident on a mandated activity log. Doheny did not recognize the errors until her office received a right-to-know request from former Selectman Regina Barnes, according to the findings.
After realizing election officials never signed the canvas bag activity logs after Casassa broke their seals, Doheny then backdated the signatures and directed her deputy clerk and another worker to sign off as witnesses.
The deputy clerk resigned immediately after the town manager became aware of the allegations.
“Your actions demonstrate that you are not able to carefully and lawfully administer elections, administer the absentee voting process, and secure election records,” O’Donnell wrote in a scathing letter directing Doheny to resign. “Your actions are not acceptable and unfair to the citizens of Hampton, who trust that their election officials will properly follow all election laws.”
Doheny declined to respond to requests for comment.
In an interview posted to Rumble.com by the user “Justice 4 All with Jocelyn,” Barnes — who goes by the handle “The NH Muckraker” — said she was shopping for groceries with her mother when the attorney general emailed her the order forcing Doheny’s resignation.
“I literally screamed,” Barnes said. “But I think, and I’m hoping, that this is not going to be like ‘oh everything’s fine now because the current town clerk is gone.’
“Because (Doheny) was the fall guy, there’s always a fall guy.”
Michael Garrity, spokesman for the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office, told NHJournal the state has authority “to seek the dismissal of an elected municipal official through a petition to the Superior Court.”
He cited a previous complaint filed in 2022 against a Laconia ward moderator after reports of irregularities surfaced during multiple elections.
“The office has traditionally directed elected officials to resign as a first step in that process,” Garrity said. “A refusal by an official to resign may then lead to further action.”
Doheny has agreed to resign by Aug. 9, according to O’Donnell.
Doheny’s alleged incompetence is outrageous, says Bedford head clerk Karen Fischer.
“How dare you take advantage of the citizens that elected you!” Fisher posted. “You should be prosecuted to the fullest extent!”
But the Hampton Democratic Town Committee has praised Doheny’s work.
In a Jan. 8, 2021, letter-to-the-editor published in the Portsmouth Herald, the committee condemned the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol protests and wrote that Hampton is “fortunate to have a team of dedicated election officials and volunteers who consistently do exemplary work to protect and guarantee the integrity of our elections.”
The letter continued, “Lead [sic] by Town Moderator Bob Casassa and Town Clerk Shirley Doheny, they ALL deserve our thanks and gratitude. When Bob (Casassa) announces the election results in Hampton, there is never any question that the results are accurate and trustworthy.”
