The New Hampshire Secretary of State and Attorney General are asking every town that uses electronic ballot counters to get the names of residents who insist their ballot be counted by hand on November 5th.
A voter insisting that their ballot be hand counted should be advised that the town/city has adopted a ballot counting device and by law ballots must be inserted into the device for counting. If the voter nonetheless insists, inform the voter if they refuse to follow the law they will be reported, request and note the voter’s name, but allow the ballot to be placed in the container for ballots to be hand counted. All ballots placed in the container for hand counting should be hand counted, do not later insert these ballots into the device for counting.
The State of New Hampshire has released its last-minute notes, reminders, and instructions to polling places across the state. 2024 General Election Guidance and Issues covers electioneering, ballot challenges, vehicles or people adorned with “campaign” paraphernalia (where prohibited), absentee ballots, affidavits, and the hand-counting bin.
Item VII introduces what looks a little bit like state-sanctioned voter intimidation.
For towns and cities using ballot counting devices, the presumption is that ballots will be
counted by the device unless the law provides otherwise. Ballots with an overvoted office,
Federal Office Only ballots, UOCAVA printed at home ballots, electronic accessible ballots
printed at home, or ballots otherwise rejected by the device must be placed in the container for
ballots to be hand counted.A voter insisting that their ballot be hand counted should be advised that the town/city has adopted a ballot counting device and by law ballots must be inserted into the device for counting. If the voter nonetheless insists, inform the voter if they refuse to follow the law they will be reported, request and note the voter’s name, but allow the ballot to be placed in the container for ballots to be hand counted. All ballots placed in the container for hand counting should be hand counted, do not later insert these ballots into the device for counting.
Put it in the machine, or else! Or else, what? Reported to whom? The school principal? The presumption has to be that these names will go to the SoS and the AG. To what end? What are they doing with that information? Will the AG be sending “authorities” to my home – at 5 AM, perhaps?
What if the voter refuses to provide their name (assuming a town is big enough, the moderators don’t know who they are on sight)? Do you call the duty officer over to intimidate the voter into coughing up an ID?
That’s MacDonald. Mac, not Mc. Get it right – as if they don’t already have a file on me. Troublemaker.
And this might be my shortcoming, but I’m unaware of any constitutional mandate to count ballots electronically. Quite the opposite. But this looks like an order to intimidate people into putting their ballots into the electronic voting machine. C’mon, man. Put it in the machine…for Democracy!
Democracy.
It’s not as if the AccuVote or Dominion products are without flaws or risks (understatement of the year?).
Dominion voting machines are already stirring controversy in the 2024 election amid ongoing early voting. Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson has confirmed that some terminals are experiencing issues nationwide with split-ticket ballots.
Texas has opened a criminal investigation.
A sheriff’s office in Barry County, Michigan, says it has been referring suspected electoral crimes to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and that the America First law officer has opened a criminal investigation into Dominion Voting Systems.
Then there’s this.
What’s going on @dominionvoting?
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 30, 2024
pic.twitter.com/2Y3if0nvTo
And that’s just this week. New Hampshire has its own sordid and suspicious history with Dominion or AccuVote. People have every right to suspect the integrity of the outcome, so you might want to encourage everyone you know to request their ballot be hand counted.
Just sayin’.
Note: I sent an early morning email to the Secretary of State’s Elections Division asking, “To whom will the voter be reported, for what purpose, and based on what statute, please?” A response was not available at the time of publication.
Depending on what they have to say for themselves, I will update this post or write a follow-up.
