Furor over 2020 election puts NH voter confidence to test

Sep. 11—In a poll from the University of New Hampshire last June, 84% of Granite Staters surveyed said they were "very" or "somewhat" confident in the accuracy of their elections.

But Secretary of State David Scanlan said it's clear the skepticism of many about the 2020 presidential election has spilled into the debate for 2022, with more questioning the process despite the state's enviable reputation as the first-in-the-nation presidential primary state.

Attempts at election reform replaced COVID-19 as the most visible issue at the State House this year, when the Republican-led Legislature considered, and then rejected, nearly all of 20 bills on the topic, including the elimination of electronic voting machines and a forensic audit of the 2020 vote.

In response, Scanlan created an eight-person Special Committee on Voter Confidence and sent them to take public testimony across the state about how to promote greater faith in the system.

"People need to be heard, and we've got to do an even better job explaining how well elections are run in cities and towns across New Hampshire," Scanlan said.

One extreme to other

When the committee starts to work later this fall on a final report, they will surely have plenty of differing opinions to pore over.

"My view is there isn't a voter confidence issue in New Hampshire," said Henry Klementowicz, senior staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of New Hampshire.

The ACLU's only plea for reform was to end partisan gerrymandering of election districts.

At a recent meeting of the committee, Regina Barnes, a former Hampton selectman, presented Special Committee Co-Chairman Brad Cook with a "notice of trespass." She insisted the New Hampshire Constitution does not allow for the use of electronic voting machines.

"We are doing things that are not authorized by the state Constitution when it comes to voting laws," Barnes said.

Brenda Towne, an activist who alleges widespread fraud, claims 1,000 people in the 2020 election impersonated residents who had sold their homes and left New Hampshire during the election year.

"Every time someone tells us this is a perfect process, it incenses us and makes us feel completely disenfranchised," she said.

Differing solutions

Meanwhile, activists on the political left and right offer widely different solutions.

The Campaign for Voting Rights calls for changing New Hampshire law to make it easier to vote by creating online voter registration or letting anyone register while doing other business at a Division of Motor Vehicles substation.

"This committee should not be the platform for the rhetoric of dangerous election fraud conspiracies," said McKenzie St. Germain of Manchester, speaking for the Campaign for Voting Rights.

The fiscally conservative Granite State Taxpayers said the problem is New Hampshire has no definition of residency, and as a result more than 6,000 people with out-of-state driver's licenses were allowed to vote here in 2016.

"Most people are surprised to learn anyone can do that, and many would agree it was problematic, i.e., voter fraud," said Ray Chadwick, the group's chairman.

"Most people think it is fraud, but it's legal under our laws."

The heads of the two political parties also have offered very different visions.

Democratic Party Chairman Raymond Buckley said the state should have no-excuse absentee voting, which was allowed in 2020 because of COVID and led to record turnout.

Former House Speaker Bill O'Brien, the state's legal counsel to the Republican National Committee, sought to tighten the reasons one can vote by absentee ballot.

Gov. Chris Sununu has signed legislation that will toss out the ballots of voters without an ID who are unable to later produce proof they are qualified to vote here, but that measure won't take effect until after the 2022 election.

Liberal organizations already have served notice in court they will sue to block that law from taking effect. They succeeded in convincing the Supreme Court to suspend a previous reform in 2020.

Lawmakers did pass two bills that will apply to this election: One calls for random audits of election results statewide and a second to double-check the numbers from another major race during recounts of very close races for State House seats.

"They should help. It's a start," Scanlan said.