NH AG Orders Hampton Town Clerk to Resign After Multiple Election Law Violations

by Steve MacDonald

Hampton Town Clerk Shirly Doheny has just been ordered by the NH Attorney General’s Office to Resign for what amounts to criminal indifference, gross negligence, or just serial incompetence when it comes to the Hampton Town Election.

The letter outlining the investigation leading to the request is included below. Doheny is alleged to have violated at least five different election laws, including during the January 2024 presidential primary and the Town’s local elections seven weeks later. Doheny has until Aug 9th to resign.

The non-image text from (page one) has been optically converted. The original image file can be seen here.

Dear Clerk Doheny:

This Office received information indicating that you failed to follow several election laws during the January 23, 2024 Presidential Primary Election (the “Primary Eleclion”) and the March 12, 2024 Hampton Town Election (the “Town Election”). Following an investigation, this Office determined that you failed to follow numerous election laws, including: (1) omitting the affidavit envelope when sending absentee ballot materials to 79 voters for the Primary Election, contrary to RSA 657:15; (2) processing and casting approximately 10-25 of these absentee ballots despite the ballots not being sealed in an affidavit envelope, contrary to RSA 659:53; (3) improperly signing the activity logs for ballot counting devices used in the Town Election, contrary to RSA 656:40, VIII(d); and (4) failing to seal boxes of uncast absentee ballots following the Town Election, contrary to RSA 659:95 and RSA 669:25. Additionally, the Town Clerk’s Office made multiple errors when preparing ballots for the Town Election and the March 12, 2024 Hampton School District Election (the “School District Election”). These errors resulted in the Town having to reprint the ballots multiple times and to resend corrected absentee ballots to some residents, which both created voter confusion and delayed the absentee voting process.

Your actions demonstrate that you are not able to carefully and lawfully administer elections, administer the absentee voting process, and secure election records. Your actions are not acceptable and unfair to the citizens of Hampton, who trust that their election officials will properly follow all election laws. Due to these serious breaches of your duties as Town Clerk, you are hereby directed to resign your position as Town Clerk by Friday, August 9, 2024.

The investigative details follow.

Author

  • Steve MacDonald

    Steve is a long-time New Hampshire resident, award-winning blogger, and a member of the Board of Directors of The 603 Alliance. He is the owner of Grok Media LLC and the Managing Editor, Executive Editor, assistant editor, Editor, content curator, complaint department, Op-ed editor, gatekeeper (most likely to miss typos because he has no editor), and contributor at GraniteGrok.com. Steve is also a former board member of the Republican Liberty Caucus of New Hampshire, The Republican Volunteer Coalition, has worked for or with many state and local campaigns and grassroots groups, and is a past contributor to the Franklin Center for Public Policy.

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