Here in New Hampshire, we have the old style town meetings where everyone in a town gets together to hammer the final budgets for the town and schools spending. There’s generally a bunch “warrants” (or articles or questions) about all kinds of sundry things like appropriating money for new equipment like police or fire vehicles, putting in sidewalks or a new school running track and the like and, lately, out-of-town activist find someone to put up a Petition Warrant (a voter initiated Warrant as opposed to one by the Town or School Board) about some political agenda. People speak either for or against each one and then people vote – sometimes by the “Aye / Nay” yelling method, hand raising, or standing. There is also a secret ballot format that’s allowed as well.
The issue, in many cases, is that these Warrant Articles can be modified during the Town Meeting (or, if the Town / School Board is what we call an “SB2” entity in which the gathering still happens but is called “the Deliberative Session” with voting by secret ballots 30 days later). The practice was often abused in which someone who had spent a lot of time crafting the Petition and gathering the necessary signatures, would see it turned into something completely different by the time the meeting was over. A NH State Law was passed a few years ago to stop this practice; it protected the “main intent” of the Petition while allowing some minor adjustment to it.
I just got an email from someone in the next town over concerning two Petition Warrants that have been changed. It’s a good Object Lesson in which one shows the “minor nibbling at the edges” while the other one’s intent was completely destroyed:
At our town’s deliberative session, amendments were made to petitioned articles we introduced that rendered them “a nullity.” They were approved nonetheless. If you have any referral on any individual who may be able to provide insight and guidance on pursuing this matter I would be greatly indebted.
To see if the Town of Belmont, New Hampshire, will vote to Terminate the Appointment of Mark Lewandoski as Chief of the Belmont Police Department
[pursuant to the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Cease and Desist Order of November 4, 2021, condemning his actions and indicating he induced his subordinates to engage in criminal conduct in violation of electioneering law, thereby undermining public confidence in the integrity of law enforcement].
The strikeout text was removed from the Petition Warrant:
AMENDED VERSION (removed the conduct that formed the basis of the article):
To see if the Town of Belmont, New Hampshire, will vote to Terminate the Appointment of Mark Lewandoski as Chief of the Belmont Police Department.
The main intent was to fire the the Chief. The Petition Warrant was edited so as to remove the reason WHY a number of residents had agreed to put in to inform the others as to WHY the firing was justified. My thoughts are that the amendment is probably OK – the main intent is to fire him for what seems to be “cause”. While important, the reason why isn’t the main intent from my unlawyerly eyes. Don’t get me wrong – the info about the NH AG’s Cease and Desist on electioneering (a really bad thing for an appointed official to be doing here in NH – very much frowned upon as a conflict of interest)) SHOULD have been left in. That said, I’m betting it’s legal as it still leaves the decision up to the voters of the town.
My source also included this – an effort to be vindictive and put in verbiage to set in motion a cause of retribution against those that had put in the WHY part of the original:
Interestingly, at the Deliberative Session where some shill moved to delete the public record of Lewandoski’s actions, or what he called “the inflammatory language,” thereby concealing Lewandoski’s offensive conduct, they also moved to “dox,” or reveal, the names of anyone that might have signed the petition. The motion was denied by the Moderator. Revealing how they wanted to cloak Lewandoski’s illegal conduct but subject law-abiding citizens to public harassment.
Good for the Moderator for doing the right thing about the doxxing. I’ve also asked my source to get me the names of those who wanted to dox the the original Petitioners – I am not above playing in the mud and if you want to make examples of others, these folks need to know that OTHERS (like GraniteGrok) will simply play by “the new rules” that you have put into place. Chilling speech in my eyes is a big no-no and should be dealt with appropriately.
HEY, NITWITS! GUESS WHAT! With your attempted suppression of the evidence and your maltreatment of others, you’ve now brought MORE attention to Mark Lewandowski’s illegal electioneering. Hopefully, you too, will suffer the Streisand Effect once GraniteGrok gets its hands on the names. In fact, and RSA 91:A should be sufficient to get the job done IF the Deliberative Session Clerk took sufficient notes – that’s also a public document.
ON the other hand, the amendment to this next one (same town) is blatantly illegal, IMHO, as it completely obviates the Purpose of the Petition:
To see if the Town of Belmont, New Hampshire, will vote that it be the practice in all elections in the Town of Belmont that such elections shall be made on paper ballots only and all such ballots are to be counted by hand in full view of the public without the use of any electronic means whatsoever.
AMENDED VERSION (removed prohibition on electronic counting, making it discretionary):
To see if the Town of Belmont, New Hampshire, will vote that it be the practice in all elections in the Town of Belmont that such elections shall be made on paper ballots only and all such ballots are to be counted either by hand in full view of the public or with the assistance of ballot counting machines, whichever the Selectmen deem most appropriate
[without the use of any electronic means whatsoever].
The main Purpose of the Petition was to revert back to hand counting of ballots. The amendment REMOVED that Intent.
Sidenote: For those outside of NH, we had what has been dubbed “The Windham Incident” (well covered by Grokster Ken Eyring with lots of other contributing to it) in which machine counted votes varied from those hand counted done in a recount because of the suspicious percentages shown by the machine. Big deal and the “election integrity” issue is still a big one here even if the official finding was that absentee ballots were incorrectly folded by a machine not authorized for that folding; the “fold” distorted the voting marks and were then incorrectly read by the AccuVote machines by Dominion Systems.
This Amendment pretty much takes the decision away from voters and places it back, possibly, back to the elected Town officials My response to my source was:
The second one is much more problematic as it negates the intent – counting to be done ONLY by hand. I’d immediately take it to the SecState’s and AG’s offices pronto.
So, we’ll see what happens. He is going to do that.
Hopefully, to be continued
