At just around 6pm last night for the next 2.5 hours, the counting went on. However, as I alluded to here, there was a kerfuffle over who was going to be able to stay and watch the counting and who was going to get kicked out. Andrew Georgevits was nominally in charge of the process and at 6pm, started to set up the tables and the chairs. As opposed to NH GOP Executive Director Joe Sweeney who took the time to explain how they would adjudicate the ballots (e.g., if someone voted in person at the NH GOP HQ, also voted in a County vote, and / or voted in person at Granite State Baptist Church), he was rather brusk with me before the counting – all I wanted to do was to ask a couple of simple questions.
And then he decided to double down with pretty much everyone in the room that had to assembled to watch the process – not a good look when a number of the County officials (Chairs, Vice Chairs, Treasurer) made it QUITE clear they weren’t budgeting and vocally said they weren’t leaving:
Not a good for look Andrew at all – getting a substantial number of Counties thoroughly ticked off. As you see, however, NH GOP Exec. Dir. Joe Sweeney, in recognizing that a really bad PR confrontation was forming (and GraniteGrok cameras rolling), saved his belligerent butt and let everyone stay.
The email from Andrew that the attendees took exception to – and note the timing:
From: Andrew Georgevits <apgjumper@hotmail.com>
Date: February 5, 2021 at 19:53:00 EST
Cc: <redacted>
Subject: Ballot Processing and Counting Tomorrow NightHello candidates for NHRSC officer positions,
Tomorrow night we will end our election in the 2021 NHRSC Officers Election – polling will be open at Granite State Baptist Church in Concord form 8 am until 6 PM. At 6 PM the doors to the church will be locked and the polling location will be closed. At 6 PM the county, city, and NHGOP lockboxes will be opened up and each early vote submitted will be processed. The name of the voter written on the outer envelope will be read aloud to the observers present and crossed off the NHRSC voter checklist, then that ballot will be removed from the envelopes and cast into the centralized ballot box.
Each candidate for the contested NHRSC offices may designate one observer to observe the ballot processing and the vote count following all ballots being cast. The candidate cannot serve as their own observer. All non-designated individuals present will have to sit outside the voting location while the votes are being counted. This is how it has been done at previous State Committee officer elections and how it will be done tomorrow. In addition to those designated we will also have representatives from some of the county committees to observe as neutral observers along with my Sergeant-at-Arms team to oversee the counting and processing of the ballots. Only members of my team will be touching the envelopes and the ballots during this process. Please let me know by tomorrow at 4 PM who your election observer is going to be if you are appointing someone so I can make sure that they are present before the processing and counting starts.
Thank you for your attention to this email and I look forward to hearing back from you,
Andrew Georgevits
NHRSC Sergeant-at-Arms
<redacted>
And GranitGrok was one of those neutral observers.
One other POV (Point of View) from Camera 3 will be coming later.
