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More stray ballots from the 2020 general election have been found during a 2021 election, this time in Laconia. And the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office is investigating.

Ballots were reportedly found in a voting machine in September, more than 10 months after the 2020 election. Deputy General Counsel Myles Matteson with Attorney General’s Office said the ballots weren’t reported to his office until this month. Matteson said Wednesday he is unsure why the city took almost three months to report them.

“We don’t have further information to share on that at this point but our investigation is ongoing,” Matteson said.

Laconia officials are not talking. City Clerk Cheryl Hebert, City Manager Scott Myers, and Mayor Andrew Hosmer all declined to respond to requests for comment from New Hampshire Journal on Wednesday.

According to the Concord Monitor, most municipalities in New Hampshire use AccuVote optical scanning systems to tabulate paper ballots. When a voter fills out a ballot, it is scanned and dropped into a secure box connected to the scanner. 

Hebert told the Monitor the city uses an option in the ballot-counting system which allows some ballots to be diverted to a special partitioned section of the box. But she would not say if the ballots discovered in September were found in the special partition. Matteson said whatever happened, it was not the machine’s fault.

“There is no indication that the ballots were left in the ballot collection box because of machine error,” he said.

Representatives for AccuVote are unavailable for comment this week due to the Christmas holiday.

Matteson said the total number of found ballots is not known at this time, but he said they would not change the outcome of any race. While the problem may not be a mechanical error, some Granite Staters in the so-called voter integrity movement want to do away with all voting machines.

The New Hampshire Voter Integrity group is an online community that includes conspiracy theorists who believe Donald Trump won the 2020 election. An effort to get rid of the voting machines in Greenland recently failed overwhelmingly at the ballot box, though there are more plans in other towns to get rid of the machines.

The AccuVote optical scanners used in New Hampshire were generally manufactured in the 1990s, and do not have the ability to go onto the internet, or even be accessed by Bluetooth devices. That has not stopped conspiracy theories from speculating the vote totals were manipulated because of the machines.

The Laconia ballot error is similar to ballot mishaps in Bedford, Merrimack, and Nottingham when stray ballots were found months later.

Bedford tried and failed to keep word of its ballot mishandling secret. Last year, 190 absentee ballots in the November 2020 general election were mistakenly placed among counted ballots and weren’t found until five days later. Town election officials, at the suggestion of Assistant Town Brian Shaughnessy, kept their existence secret from town councilors and the general public — including the 190 disenfranchised voters.

Last month, Town Manager Rick Sawyer sent members of the Town Council an email informing them that another stash of counted 2020 ballots had been found in a ballot box in September during the special election. It took the town weeks to tell anyone about these ballots. Senior Assistant Attorney General Anne Edwards confirmed she’s investigating that latest ballot snafu. Edwards had all of Bedford’s ballot boxes seized as part of the investigation.

According to emails obtained by New Hampshire Journal, Town Council Chairman Dan Gilbert was upset that the news of the ballots had gone public. He told councilors not to answer questions about the ballots.

“I have asked for a meeting with our town attorney, town clerk, and town moderator to decide on a course of action in this matter. Please refrain from asking questions or making any comments until a path forward is decided on. I am very disturbed that someone already spoke to the NH Journal about this matter,” Gilbert wrote.

Documents obtained by New Hampshire Journal confirm Bedford town officials discovered still more mishandled ballots in September 2021 and, like the 190 uncounted ballots from November, are attempting to hide their discovery from the public.

Meanwhile, an attorney with the New Hampshire Attorney General’s office has told NHJournal it is preparing to begin an investigation into the matter.

Bedford Town Manager Rick Sawyer sent members of the Town Council an email on Tuesday informing them more ballots from the 2020 election were discovered by town staff, who kept their existence secret until this week.

“I am making you aware that the Town Clerk (Sally Kellar) just walked into my office with an envelope that she says contains cast ballots from the November 2020 election and that were found in a voting box in the September 2021 Special Election and handed to her,” Sawyer wrote. “I advised her immediately to contact the town attorney and the appropriate state officials. If it is as described, these ballots were counted in the election but would not have been available for the recount. I don’t know why notification was not made immediately in September.”

Sources tell NHJournal town election officials have no plan to reveal this information to the public. It’s still not clear how many ballots were discovered in this second incident, and they refused to answer questions about the ballots, or even acknowledge their existence to NHJournal.

The 2020 state Senate election in Bedford was close enough for a recount between incumbent Democrat Jeanne Dietsch and Republican Denise Ricciardi. Dietsch called off the recount halfway through, leaving Ricciardi with a 409-vote margin.

Town officials say the 190 uncast absentee ballots they discovered last November and hid from the public for nearly a year would not have changed any election results.

Kellar hung up when asked questions about the ballots on Tuesday, after saying that no ‘uncast ballots’ were found, an apparent attempt to mislead the reporter. Sawyer, Town Moderator Bill Klein, and Town Council Chair David Gilbert, and Vice-Chair Bill Carter were all contacted for this story. They all failed to respond.

Senior Assistant Attorney General Anne Edwards said Wednesday her office is aware of the latest ballot problem in Bedford and is looking into the matter.

“Yesterday, we were made aware of an issue regarding ballots in Bedford. At this time, we do not have detailed information. We will be investigating this situation,” Edwards said. 

Senior Assistant Town Moderator Brian Shaughnessy played a leadership role in the November 2020 general election and now admits that he — and not the Attorney General’s Office — is the source of the decision to keep the mishandled ballots secret from the public and town council. But on Wednesday, he told NHJournal he was completely unaware of the discovery of any additional ballots or a second snafu.

“I’m a volunteer that gets appointed at the election,” he said. “I would not normally be kept in the loop.”

The town enacted a series of election reforms after the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office investigated, Shaughnessy said. He blamed the issues from 2020 on the unprecedented number of absentee ballots cast during the pandemic election. 

“It was a unique situation with 7,700 absentee ballots,” he said. “We generally don’t need 50 volunteers to open envelopes.”

At last week’s Town Council meeting, Shaughnessy insisted he and the other election officials “did the right thing” by keeping the story about the 190 ballots a secret for nearly a year. 

“We don’t work for you,” was Shaughnessy’s answer when councilors asked why elected representatives of Bedford’s citizens were left in the dark. Klein acknowledged those voters “were disenfranchised,” but he stood by the decision not to inform them.

Developing….

The four Bedford town officials responsible for keeping 190 mishandled ballots a secret for nearly a year were defiant in the face of a “no confidence” vote Wednesday night, insisting they did the right thing by leaving town councilors and the public in the dark.

Town Manager Rick Sawyer, Town Clerk Sally Kellar, Town Moderator William Klein, and Assistant Town Moderator Brian Shaughnessy all narrowly survived a 4-3 vote on the “no-confidence” resolution.

The vote was the conclusion of a contentious hearing during which Shaughnessy acknowledged he — and not the Secretary of State’s or Attorney General’s Office — was the source of the legal strategy not to inform the town council of the uncounted ballots from the 2020 general election. The year-long delay and bureaucratic secrecy have been seized upon by supporters of former President Donald  Trump’s unfounded “stolen election” conspiracy as proof that the 2020 election results are suspect.

Wednesday night’s meeting was the first time town officials or town councilors had discussed the ballot fiasco in public. Only Klein and Shaughnessy were on hand to answer questions. Town Clerk Sally Kellar was attending an out-of-town event and chose not to participate remotely.

Town Councilor Kelleigh Murphy did participate via telephone, but the distance didn’t prevent her from making her anger felt inside Town Hall.

“You had a duty to tell the council. It is absolutely deplorable that this information was kept from us. I don’t think anyone who knew about it at the time and kept it secret should be involved in town government,” Murphy said. “I feel very strongly about that.”

Everyone agreed the mishandling of 190 absentee ballots was a simple mistake. A tray of uncounted ballots was erroneously placed among ballots that had been counted. The anger, from elected officials and the public, was in response to the decision of both state and local officials to keep the mistake a secret until just weeks ago.

The already-troubling story took a bizarre turn when Kellar and Klein mailed a letter last month claiming the Attorney General’s Office ordered them to hide the mistake from the public.

The Attorney General’s Office responded with a letter of its own contradicting the claim and putting the burden back on Bedford’s town officials.

“Bedford election officials raised concerns with this notification and asked (us) not to notify voters,” the Attorney General’s general counsel Anne Edwards told NHJournal. “I would never say that about an elected official lied,” Edwards said of the letter from Keller and Klein. “We felt it was important to issue a clarification because we were concerned about the accuracy of some of the statements.”

But Wednesday night, Shaugnessy admitted he was the source of the strategy of silence, not state officials.

“Our decision that was made at the beginning [November 2020] was that until the Attorney General’s Office investigates and speaks to us, we shouldn’t be talking to anyone. The Attorney General’s investigation is a criminal investigation. Sally and Bill could be subject to criminal penalties, including a felony. I didn’t think it was a good idea for them to talk to anybody.”

But, Murphy responded, Shaughnessy isn’t the town attorney. “Did you consult with the town attorney or just give out haphazard legal advice?”

“I gave out haphazard legal advice,” Shaughnessy replied. “I did not check with the town attorney.”

Shaughnessy also didn’t explain what possible felony the town Clerk or Moderator could have committed by telling voters about the uncounted ballots, a claim several New Hampshire attorneys found laughable.

Councilor Denise Ricciardi, who also serves as a state Senator and whose election was subject to a recount that would have involved the mishandled ballots, asked Shaughnessy where the Secretary of State or Attorney General got the authority to order the town’s elected officials to keep the ballot screw-up a secret. “Is there a law or a statute?”

After a long pause, Shaughnessy acknowledged: “I am not aware of any law or statute that allows them to order people to keep things quiet.”

In the end, both Klein and Shaunessy were defiant, stating flatly that they don’t answer to the council and are free to deny them information about elections if they choose.

“We believe we did the right thing,” Klein said. “We report to the Secretary of State. We do not report to the Town Council.”

After that, it became clear there would be a no-confidence vote called by Murphy.

“The town council is the town governing body. Rick Sawyer had a duty to let the council know what was going on,” Murphy said. “I understand why people lose faith in government. This never should have happened. It is completely unacceptable.”

Both Murphy and councilor  Bill Duschatko expressed their disappointment with the defiant stance of the town officials, who continued to insist they did nothing wrong.

“There is no remorse there,”  Bill Duschatko said. “It’s just another day of doing business.”

Bill Duschatko, Murphy, and Ricciardi cast the three votes in favor of the “no confidence” resolution. Councilors Bill Carter, Lori Radke, Sue Thomas and Chairman David Gilbert voted against it.

Ray Chadwick of the Bedford Republican Committee was on hand. The committee has called for a full investigation and, he told NHJournal, Wednesday night’s hearing fell far short of that. “We still need a full and thorough accounting of what happened. We did not get one tonight,” Chadwick said.

EDITOR’S NOTE: An earlier version of this article misidentified one of the members of the town council who voted against the “no confidence” resolution as Melissa Stephens. It was Bill Carter. We regret the error.

More than a year after the ballots of 190 Bedford voters were erroneously left uncounted, Bedford will hold its first public hearing on the “ballot fiasco” during this Wednesday night’s town council meeting. The existence of the ballots was kept secret by Bedford town officials, including Town Clerk Sally Kellar, Town Moderator William Klein, and other town officials.

NHJournal was the first media outlet to report on the ballot mishandling, nearly a year after the 190 absentee ballots went uncounted on Election Day 2020.

The public notice for this Wednesday’s Bedford Town Council meeting includes the line: “Discussion of November 2020 election ballot matter.” No other information is included. The public is welcome to attend and ask questions.

Town officials declined to respond to requests for comment from NHJournal, as they have largely done since the story first broke. However, state Sen. Denise Ricciardi, who also serves on the council, did release a brief statement.

“I am very happy to see this issue is going to be addressed in public. As a public servant and elected official, transparency has always been very important to me,” Ricciardi said. “I’m glad this is on the agenda because answers are needed. I just want the truth — why was this kept from both the public and the town council for a year?”

While there is general agreement on what happened to the ballots during the 2020 general election — a tray of uncounted absentee ballots was mistakenly placed among those already counted — it’s the behavior of town officials after the error was discovered that has angered many Bedford residents. It has also fed suspicions among some Granite Staters who are already concerned about ballot security.

Rather than publicly acknowledging the mistake at the time, Town Manager Kellar and Moderator Klein chose to reach out to the secretary of state’s office, which then contacted the Attorney General’s Office. Town officials, including Deputy Clerk Gloria MacVane, Town Manager Rick Sawyer, and Assistant Moderator Brian Shaughnessy, kept the disenfranchising of Bedford voters a secret even as the secretary of state was conducting a recount of the local state Senate race the following week.

Secretary of State Bill Gardner told NHJournal he was unaware of the ballots during the recount as well.

In a letter mailed to the disenfranchised voters on October 30, Kellar and Klein blamed their secrecy on the Attorney General’s Office.

“The attorney general requested some information from us and we submitted it on November 19, 2020. We were told not to discuss this with anyone, not even the town council, because it was a pending investigation,” they claimed.

The Attorney General’s Office responded by saying that claim was untrue, and that it first learned town officials were blaming the office for the secrecy from NHJournal.

“Our Office learned of your October 28 letter concerning uncounted absentee ballots through [NHJournal’s coverage] on Saturday, October 30,” Anne M. Edwards, the attorney general’s general counsel said in a letter to town officials. “We are concerned, in particular, by three statements in your letter: 1) that the Attorney General’s Office instructed you not to tell anyone, including the Bedford Town Council, about the 190 uncounted absentee ballots; 2) that you made numerous attempts to obtain a resolution from our Office; and 3) that our October 21 closure letter was essentially the first explanation from us as to the necessary remediation plan.

“These statements are inaccurate,” Edwards wrote.

Bedford town officials have insisted to NHJournal the Attorney General’s Office was behind the delay, while that office has communications showing it was pressuring the town to make the information public. Both sides agree the process largely came to a halt in the lead up to the September 7, 2021 special election to fill a state House seat vacancy.

The winner of that special election, Rep. Catherine Rombeau, joined fellow Bedford Democrat Rep. Sue Mullen in a statement calling for a full investigation.

“We are perplexed by the length of time it took to conduct the investigation and conflicting accounts from local officials, the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office, and the New Hampshire secretary of state’s office,” the Democrats said. “We call for a thorough and transparent explanation of the timeline of events, decisions made throughout this process, and communications between these three groups. It is of utmost importance for Bedford voters to know these facts.”

The Bedford Republican Committee echoed those sentiments.

“The integrity of our elections, and the reliable processing of ballots, is critical to maintaining the allegiance of citizens to our system of government. It is of utmost importance, then, that we respect the efforts of these 190 voters to participate in the election. They and the public deserve a thorough investigation and determination of why their votes were not counted and were kept secret for nearly a year,” the committee said in a statement.

Meanwhile, nobody has answered the question many citizens have asked: Why didn’t some elected official at the state or local level simply make the error public? While the Attorney General’s Office as a policy doesn’t comment regarding ongoing investigations, no law or policy prevented either former Attorney General Gordon MacDonald or current Attorney General John Formella from telling the public about the matter

And even if the Attorney General’s Office did ask town officials to keep the information secret, the elected officials chosen by the voters of Bedford were not legally bound by that request.

“I just feel so angry,” said Shannon McGinley, whose two sons were among the 190 disenfranchised voters. “I understand accidents happen. But it seems that someone is lying and that there was a cover-up. And that really makes me mad.”