Last year, we invested no small amount of time and space, thanks to the hard work of citizens who care more about election integrity than many towns or the state, exposing ballot chain of custody issues. If you recall, improperly sealed boxes and problems with the procedure for applying tamperproof tape received some attention.
The upside is that we almost managed to improve things by the end. We helped create increased public awareness. And the State agreed to use better tape but kept a procedure in place that makes it just as useless as the old tape. Ballot custody issues abound, and we’ve recently learned that there is no law anywhere that requires tamperproof tape to be used to secure boxes of completed ballots.[Related: NH Not That Interested in Securing Ballot Chain of Custody After All]
That was last year. This year, we’ve got the same old problems in a different dress. Recent town election (2025) has produced some interesting revelations related to ballot custody and election integrity.
Plaistow.
A complaint filed with the AG, who, with the typical due diligence, “investigated,” produced the following results.
Plaistow has allegedly done this for more years than can be counted, and so we are clear, this cart of ballots is reported to me to be in a public hallway. Anyone could grab a box and leave with it when the clerk(s) are occupied. No one is “looking” at this cart every minute the office is open.
The other interesting detail is that tamperproof tape is not required by statute, and the Secretary of State’s Office only supplies tamperproof tape for state and federal elections. The Timberlane school district, which encompasses multiple towns, including Plaistow, had totals differing by as few as two votes. There was a significant budget issue involving ten million dollars.
These ballots are publicly accessible. Clear tape is readily available to everyone. Broken seals or labels are not uncommon and frequently dismissed as handling damage.
This is not how you run secure elections.
and it is not just Plaistow, who has, for decades, allegedly let town ballots out in the open, accessible to the public, and in the trust of clerks who have a job to do other than stare at a cart of boxes all day.
Boxes of ballots have gone missing from town offices.
In the case of Plaistow, they are too lazy to put them in the vault downstairs, and residents can no longer be sure the results of any election were correct.
The legislature needs to do more, and the more needs teeth.
We need new or better laws that protect the chain of custody.
Based on our reporting and details from citizen watchdogs, there is no consistency in the execution of elections across the state or, in particular, how ballots are secured and the chain of custody protected.
It is rare for a clerk or moderator to suffer any consequence for failing to conduct an election or secure completed ballots properly.
To its credit, the Legislature did make some improvements to how absentee ballots are issued, but handling, counting, and recording continue to present opportunities for improvement, and locals need to be proactive about watchdogging their elections for irregularities.
You can’t count on a handful of activists to secure your elections for you, and not giving a damn can cost you millions of dollars on town and school budgets annually. Ballot custody is worth a lot of your money. And while Plaistow is the latest example of something they do because they always did it that way, that compromises election integrity, wait until you hear about Danville.
That’s tomorrow, in which I will show, among other things, why I think the towns are required to use red tamper-proof tape based on State Statute.
