With all due respect to the people I’m about to pound like a broken storm door in a hurricane, New Hampshire’s elections are not clean, tight, or reliable—quite the opposite. And I think they know it.
If you read our recent reporting from Windham, Ken Eyring shared some election intrigue that centers on letters from the AG office and the Secretary of state admitting that election law is not being followed even after they plant a state moderator at the polling place to make sure it is. Tom and Ken spoke with us on Radio Row Sunday afternoon and explained the violations and the lack of interest by state authorities to fix them.
You’ll be oh so happy to know that the Jan 23rd primary at that same polling place was again rife with violations of state law on top of the other stories we have to share below – that suggest Haley’s second-place finish in the Granite State needs an asterisk.
Here’s the interview with Tom and Ken from Sunday the 21st (it does not include the 1/23 revelations we’ve since learned, obviously).
Wait, There’s More!
I’ve had a handful of anecdotal reports from locals of attempted election law violations with regard to registered Democrats wanting to take a Republican ballot. One in my own home town, that I related yesterday, and several more communicated to me via email. Democrats around the state showed up to pull a Republican primary ballot despite being ineligible to do so. We can blame this on Gov. Chris Sununu – if memory serves – a registered Republican who has his head so far up Haley’s ass you can barely see his big shoulders; he has been saying Democrats should vote for Haley long after the deadline for changing party registration has passed.
Speaking of anecdotal examples, reporter Michael Tracey was on Glenn Greenwald’s podcast, and he shared two quick stories that add credibility to the argument.
Town officials ignorant of election law or who ignore it while the SoS and AG are content to write letters admitting violations of laws over which there appear to be no punishments seems like a shitty way to run them. We have the ability to strip those who violate election law in New Hampshire of the right to vote in the state. Maybe that’s what is needed when it comes to local election officials who have neither the time nor the ability to follow them.
That or huge fines and jail time.
Of course, we’d still run into the problem of finding an AG willing to charge and pursue justice for voters who may not even realize how badly their votes are mishandled. But it needs to be handled before someone decides it’s time to embrace Article 10 of the NH State Constitution.
[Art.] 10. [Right of Revolution.] Government being instituted for the common benefit, protection, and security of the whole community, and not for the private interest or emolument of any one man, family, or class of men; therefore, whenever the ends of government are perverted, and public liberty manifestly endangered, and all other means of redress are ineffectual, the people may, and of right ought to reform the old, or establish a new government. The doctrine of nonresistance against arbitrary power, and oppression, is absurd, slavish, and destructive of the good and happiness of mankind.
Edited after publication.
