If you need to catch up, the Grok broke News on Friday morning about a letter sent by the NH AG and Secretary of State to every election moderator in the state. It informs poll workers that they are to discourage voters from requesting a hand count for their completed ballot (emphasis mine).
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.
Yesterday, we published a follow-up – my thoughts and analysis of the response I received from the secretary of state‘s office, whom I asked to clarify what law and to whom voters would be reported. The answer to the latter is the State Attorney General and the former. The provided statute (IMO) does not empower the state to intimidate voters into using machines to count their ballots. Nor did a linked State Supreme Court decision add value – quite the opposite.
What law? This is clearly neither a burden nor prohibitive, and neither 656:40 nor Richard v. Governor mandates machine counting, which would have to be true. 656:40 clarifies that towns can choose to use machines to count ballots following whatever local ordinance they passed. Short of a municipality having a ban on “hand counting” enshrined in the ordinance, there’s no “there there,” more so given that the SoS guidance specifically allows a hand-counting bin and hand-counting exceptions that must then be counted … by hand.
As for Richard v. Governor (Case 2023-0097) – maybe they didn’t expect me to read it – while the Court did not agree that machine counting is unconstitutional, it did not support whatever this is the SOS and AG are going. And, in fact – maybe they didn’t read it – the case was remanded for review on the basis that the plaintiff (Dan Richards) “has sufficiently demonstrated his right to claim relief and has therefore demonstrated standing as to his equal protection claim
set forth in Count II.”
Count two deals with the state’s use of two separate and (presumed) legitimate means of ballot counting, one of which is hand counting.
NH Patriot Hub has jumped into the fray, sharing an excellent conversation on the subject, and I thought this could add value to the debate for our readers.
Lumberjack Logic, with Neil Johnson and guests Tom Murray and Daniel Richard (both of whom are longtime contributors and supporters of The ‘Grok). Check it out!
