I’m an NHGOP Delegate. Again. After a long absence of being such. With NH GOP Party Committee’s starting the voting processes for NH State Committee members and local Committee officers. Since it has been quite some time, I wanted to know a rather simple thing: how are they now done nowadays as I was told NH GOP officials and deputies carry these out. And I did see that done two years ago for the Belknap County Republican Committee’s voting night. Since it had been years since I’d been involved in county politics, GraniteGrok was asked to come in, with cameras, to act as a neutral observer. After all cameras, as I have found, keep people honest. And those that wish to not be found out are generally the only ones wanting them turned off.
So, I called the NH GOP HQ on Friday to ask for something I thought would be very simple – where are the written processes/procedures/mechanics by which the NH GOP will conduct each Committee’s Caucus? Maddie answered the phone and after a brief couple of moments of hesitation, told me that Elliot Gault who would have the answer, was in a meeting in Manchester and she’d have him call me back.
Yes, I did tell her I was both an NH GOP Delegate and with GraniteGrok. So, I’m invested twice over.
And isn’t it a GOOD thing that everybody knows how the game is played before it starts? Sure, we all know about nominating and voting, winning and losing. But it is the little details that count. The BCRC Bylaws, for instance, lay out WHO can vote – any visitor? Any registered Republican? Any registered Republican living in the County? Who can offer nominations? WHO can be elected?
I’ve found nothing in the NH GOP Bylaws to the level of detail that I think is needed. Nor anything else on the NH GOP website. So I called to get those details. I’m still waiting, Elliot.
Or does the NH GOP NOT have such written down instructions and therefore, have a process that could be malleable, arbitrary, and capricious depending on the Committee being counted? There’s a history of that in such voting. Been there, depending on who is at the helm (or in the dark corners). Why else was GraniteGrok called in to be a neutral observer?
So, where’s the written protocol? And if it doesn’t exist, why doesn’t it (for the sake of transparency, openness), NH GOP Chair Steve Stepanek?
And make no mistake about it – elections for Committee officials and State Committee members are just about there. NH GOP elections are Jan 28.
