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Top Election Officials Blast Report Ranking NH Last in Voting Ease

A new report from a progressive political organization ranks New Hampshire dead last in ease of voting. But the Granite State’s top election officials dismiss the findings as bunk.

“That’s the type of report that causes people to lose confidence in elections,” said New Hampshire Secretary of State Dave Scanlan. “The report is way off base in my opinion.”

The report, Cost of Voting in American States, ranks New Hampshire 50th in the nation, finding the Granite State makes it more difficult and expensive to vote than any other. That report has since been picked up by national media outlets like The New York Times, and locally by WMUR.

Scanlan said the report, compiled by a researcher with a political activist group, along with a Midwest political science professor and a data analyst from China, ignored the facts on the ground when it comes to how easy it is for New Hampshire residents to vote. 

“When they issue a report like this, it gives a false picture of where New Hampshire is at,” Scanlan said.

For example, the report faults New Hampshire for not being part of the Motor Voter law where people are registered to vote when they get a driver’s license. The state is also criticized for not offering permanent mail-in voting, or adopting “no excuse” absentee voting, for not allowing incarcerated felons to vote, and not allowing drop-off ballot boxes, as some other states have allowed.

Scanlan said the report’s authors fail to consider key facts, like same-day voter registration, or the security of New Hampshire’s elections. And then there was the ultimate measurement: High voter turnout.

During the last five presidential elections, New Hampshire has been in the top three states for voter turnout, Scanlan said. “It doesn’t matter what California does, or what Washington does in their state, it matters what New Hampshire does,” Scanlan said.

“It’s easy to vote here, and we have struck a good balance between ease of voting and making sure elections are secure,” Scanlan said.

Michael Garrity, communications director for the New Hampshire Department of Justice, said the report’s findings are not based in reality.

“New Hampshire has many convenient options for voters to register to vote and to vote. New Hampshire law allows voters to register to vote in person at town and city clerks’ offices, by mail, or on election day,” Garrity said.

New Hampshire offers election day registration for voters and provides voters with the ability to bring documents showing their qualifications to vote, or allows them to sign affidavits for every qualification if they do not have any documents, he said.

“And, unlike many other states, our election day registered voters cast full ballots that are counted on election day – they are not provisional ballots that can be rejected in the weeks after an election,” Garrity said.

New Hampshire election officials strive to make sure people who are allowed to vote can vote, Scanlan said. That means making sure real registered voters are the ones taking the ballots, and that those voters are not impeded. Many of New Hampshire’s voting laws and regulations have developed over centuries, he said.

It seems to be working for New Hampshire, as a recent UNH poll found 98 percent of New Hampshire voters find it easy to cast their ballots.

“In this regard, that’s the only question that matters,” Scanlan said.

Windham Elections Under Review – Again – After Discrepancies

It’s becoming an Election Day tradition in the town of Windham, N.H.

Another election, another round of questionable election reporting, and another review in store for Windham election officials by the New Hampshire Secretary of State’s Office. 

Windham’s reported results from the Sept. 13 primary raised eyebrows when the reported results changed between election night and then later when results were given to the Secretary of State’s Office. At one point on Tuesday, Windham was “reporting” three different totals for the same elections: one from election night, one on the town’s website, and one from the hand recounts.

Republican state Rep. Julius Soti saw his total vote count in Windham drop by about 20 votes, from 1,080 on election night, to 1,063 during the week. “It’s a little bit odd they kept revising the numbers,” Soti said. “I’m not sure what happened.”  

The final tally? Soti edged Roger Filio in the GOP primary by eight votes, 2117 to 2109.

In the end, the final reported results were nearly identical to those reported on election night, with just a couple of votes net difference. So, why the moving-target tally? Town officials struggled to offer a cogent explanation.

“Any changes between the two sets of numbers can be accounted for by the continuation of the reconciliation process which involves the review of the marked checklist, hand tally sheets, write-in tally sheets, new voter registration, and checking the absentee ballot report along with various supporting spreadsheets,” said Windham’s Town Clerk Nancy Merrill in the statement. “The reconciliation process is a common, complex process that is performed not only in Windham, but all New Hampshire communities.”

But no other community had multiple results reported for the same election, critics noted.

“The votes they need to count are the ones that elected these [expletives] who run their elections,” one frustrated GOP state legislator told NHJournal. “They’ve got to go.”

Town Administrator Brian McCarthy downplayed the issue when contacted. He said the reconciliation process is in place to make sure the accurate totals are recorded, though that does not always happen the night of the vote. More time can be necessary to get all of the votes counted and the totals reconciled.

“Those reconciled numbers are the correct numbers,” McCarthy said.

That contradicts both the New Hampshire state constitution, which says all the votes will be counted on Election Day and the results from Windham where the reconciled numbers remained incorrect for part of the day Tuesday.

Not surprisingly, the state’s top election official is curious about Windham’s wandering results as well.

Secretary of State David Scanlan’s spokesperson Anna Fay said the election night counts were confirmed on Tuesday during the recount. The discrepancies in the totals will be investigated.

“The office is looking into issues related to the additional reporting that occurred after the election,” Fay said.

Windham became the epicenter for New Hampshire election conspiracy theories after the 2020 election when vote totals changed drastically in several races after the initial election night count. The months-long controversy ended with the outside audit that found the way town election officials folded the ballots caused the problems.

The folds in the paper ballots made it difficult for optical scan vote counters, AccuVote machines, to record the votes properly, hence the counting errors.

A subsequent state review also faulted local officials for compounding the errors by cutting corners ahead of the 2020 election according to a January letter from New Hampshire Attorney General John Formella and Secretary of State William Gardner to Windham town officials. Windham officials reportedly used an uncalibrated machine to tabulate the votes and skimped on a practice run that would have likely caught the issue before the election.

“(S)imply put, town election officials cut corners. Some of those shortcuts created errors—such as using an uncalibrated folding machine—which were unintentional and perhaps unforeseeable, but ultimately resulted in ballots not being accurately counted,” the letter states.

So far, no other major voting errors or discrepancies have been reported in other communities, though there were several recounts due to the high number of close elections.

Soti said the entire incident shows more oversight is still needed in Windham.

“We’re going to investigate this a little further,” Soti said. “I’m sure the secretary of state is going to ask a few questions.” 

190 Uncounted Ballots From Bedford’s 2020 Election Kept Secret for a Year, Town Blames AG

A year after the election that swept President Donald Trump out of office and New Hampshire Republicans into power, some 190 ballots cast by Bedford voters remain uncounted, NHJournal has learned.

The misplaced absentee ballots, which were discovered just days after the November 3, 2020 election, were kept secret from Town Council and the voters impacted for a year.

Town officials claim in a letter sent to the disenfranchised voters they kept the blunder secret under orders from the state Attorney General’s office, then headed by AG Gordon MacDonald.

The AG’s office disputes that claim.

“In reviewing this matter, this Office concludes that these 190 absentee ballots would not have impacted the outcome of any of the races on the ballot in Bedford during the 2020 general election,” Myles Matteson of the Attorney General’s office wrote Bedford town officials in a letter dated October 21, 2021. A copy of that letter is being sent to the 190 or so residents who cast votes last November by Bedford Town Clerk Sally Kellar and Town Moderator William Klein.

Those ballots remain unopened and uncounted.

According to Matteson, the existence of the uncast absentee ballots was discovered soon after the election.

“Deputy Clerk [Gloria] Mac Vane was reconciling the number of ballots distributed with the number of ballots cast. During this process, she discovered that there was a difference of approximately 190 fewer ballots cast than the number distributed. The amount of absentee ballots recorded received was 7,917. The total number of absentee ballots recorded cast was 7,727,” Matteson wrote.

“On November 8, 2020, Deputy Clerk MacVane attributed the cause of this discrepancy to a mistake made during the processing of absentee ballots on election day [sic].”

Because the ballots were kept secret, they were also kept out of the Bedford recount in the state Senate District 9 race between then-incumbent Jeanne Dietsch and newly-elected Republican Denise Ricciardi. That recount was held on November 1o, after the uncast ballots were discovered.

Dietsch called off the recount when the results began to benefit Ricciardi. Ricciardi’s official victory as reported by the Secretary of State’s office was 17,920 to 17,511, but that doesn’t include changes discovered in the uncompleted recount.

Why weren’t the ballots simply counted on November 8? Why was their existence kept secret? Why weren’t they used in the recount?

Kellar and Klein point the finger at the Secretary of State and Attorney General.

“When we discovered [the uncast ballots], we immediately reported it to the New Hampshire Secretary of State,” they wrote in their letter to the impacted Bedford voters. “We were advised to keep these ballots secure and to wait further instructions before taking any further action. The following week, we were informed that the matter had been referred to the NH Attorney General’s office for investigation. 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,” Kellar and Klein said.

Officials in the AG’s office say they never instructed the town to keep the incident secret from either the Town Council or the general public.

This story is unfolding with the ongoing debate over the legitimacy of the 2020 election in the background. Political insiders with knowledge of the events speculate that decisions made by the Attorney General’s Office may have been influenced by events in Windham when voting machine error caused a significant error in the first results reported. Supporters of Trump’s frequently-repeated (and frequently debunked) claims the election was stolen due to widespread election fraud have used the Windham incident to support their calls for a statewide election audit in New Hampshire.

“The Attorney General’s Office saw this unfolding and they didn’t want to add fuel to the fire,” one source suggested.

MacDonald is currently serving as Chief Justice of the New Hampshire Supreme Court.

 

NOTE: This story has been updated to include new information revealed by the Attorney General’s office, and later confirmed by town officials.