After a series of election cycles featuring troubling mishaps, New Hampshire Secretary of State David Scanlan sees smooth sailing on Election Day next week. During a press conference in his office Tuesday, he told reporters he’s expecting high turnout — possibly even record setting — and few issues at the polls.
“Ballots have been printed and distributed to all the cities and towns. Absentee ballots have been issued now for probably a good three weeks, and all that’s going well. The election officials have all been trained, and I believe we’re all prepared,” Scanlan said.
“I expect that this is going to be a smooth election. We don’t have any indication that anything is afoot in terms of polling place security and things like that. But we are prepared in the event that we have to deal with any type of an issue,” Scanlan added.
A smooth election would be a welcome break with the recent past. In 2022, there was an error during a recount in Manchester Ward 6, a dispute filled with drama due to the GOP’s one-vote majority in the House.
Two years later, scandal consumed Bedford when NHJournal broke the story that town government officials had misplaced ballots during the 2020 election count, lied about it, and tried to hide the facts from the public.
During that same election, folds in absentee ballots confused the optical scan on the AccuVote machines in Windham, creating confusion and spurring conspiracy theories about voting machines and potential fraud. It cost the state more than $120,000 to conduct a full investigation, and state officials issued a scathing letter calling out the town of Windham for its inept, dishonest, and potentially illegal mishandling of ballots.
Scanlan is hoping to avoid similar incidents this year.
“We follow the ‘KISS’ principle here: Keep it simple. And because of that, the process is transparent. It is observable. (People) can trust the results, and I think that when you look at what’s happening in other places around the country, they know their vote is going to be accurately counted.”
Scanlan specifically mentioned news reports from the West Coast where ballots deposited in unattended drop boxes were set ablaze. Because New Hampshire doesn’t allow some voting activities other states do, it has fewer problems, Scanlan suggested.
“We don’t allow ballot harvesting, which is a common activity in other states. We don’t utilize ballot drop boxes to deliver ballots, and I heard there were western states (Washington and Oregon) that just had incendiary devices placed in their drop boxes that destroyed hundreds of ballots. That’s not an opportunity that exists in New Hampshire. We do not have early voting. We have absentee voting with an excuse, but the voters in New Hampshire will show up at the polls in very large numbers and cast their ballots in this election,” Scanlan said.
And despite a lack of these policies, Scanlan noted, New Hampshire consistently ranks among the highest states for voter participation in the nation. In 2020, the Granite State ranked 6th, with more than 74 percent of the voting-eligible population casting ballots.
Perhaps the biggest news of Scanlan’s event was his prediction that voter turnout would once again be high.
“The turnout in this election is going to be very high. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s another record turnout,” Scanlan said, though he isn’t releasing his formal prediction until later in the week.
“A good indicator is the number of absentee ballots that have been requested. There are going to be more than 80,000 absentee ballots that are returned. That’s indicative of a really, really good turnout. So brace yourself.”
Scanlan’s preduction was greeted as good news by Granite State Republicans, who believe that in the era of Trump — in particular, his appeal to low-propensity, working-class voters — high turnout is good news.
“Trump voters know the future of our very republic is at stake,” said Trump advisor Corey Lewandowski in response to Scanlan’s prediction. “They will turn out in record numbers to Make America Great Again!”
Like many campaign professionals, Lewandowski told NHJournal he believes high turnout is good news for the former president. It adds to the positive polling news in recent days showing the race in the Granite State tightening between Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris.
Former state Rep. Ross Berry, who is running for a House seat in Weare and is directly involved in GOP efforts to hold the House, is also happy to hear the polls will be busy on Tuesday.
“Higher turnout in New Hampshire has always benefited Republicans,” Berry said. “Both 2016 and 2020 saw record turnout and both times Republicans swept Concord. The more people vote, the more Republicans win.”
New Hampshire’s same-day registration policy is believed to contribute to higher voter participation, and Scanlan believes there will be a surge in same-day registrations on Tuesday. He called it a common event after the once-a-decade purge of the voter rolls.
Scanlan said that as of Tuesday there were 901,784 registered voters: 331,519 undeclared, 304,340 Republicans and 265,925 Democrats.
