Poll: Nearly 80% say NH elections free of fraud
Sep. 6—CONCORD — Nearly four of five likely voters are confident New Hampshire elections are secure and free of widescale fraud, according to a poll conducted for a left-of-center voting rights group.
The survey for the New Hampshire Campaign for Voting Rights revealed a partisan split on this question, however, with only 18% of Republicans "very confident" about state election integrity while 80% of Democrats were.
Among independent voters, 52% were "very confident" while only 8% of them said they "were not confident at all."
Seventy-eight percent were "very confident" about state elections. The confidence dropped to 61% when it came to national elections, the poll found.
Data for Progress did this survey of 931 likely voters between Aug. 6-10 with a margin of error of plus or minus 3%.
The Union Leader obtained a copy of the poll as the Special Committee on Voter Confidence was preparing to hold the final scheduled public listening session Tuesday at the Keene Public Library.
"New Hampshire holds a special place in American democracy," said Samantha Buckley with Open Democracy.
"As the state with the first-in-the-nation presidential primary, New Hampshire has the unique opportunity to lead by example and adopt critical policies and procedures that can make its elections more secure and accessible for its citizens and support the important work of local election officials."
Brendan Nyhan, the James O. Freedman, presidential professor at Dartmouth College and Charles Stewart, the Kenan Sahin distinguished professor of Political Science at MIT, will make presentations to the committee.
Nyhan wrote a 2021 paper for the Journal of Experimental Science on the effect of voter fraud claims on voter confidence.
For 21 years, Stewart has been with the Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project that analyzes questions about election technology, administration and reform.
State now printing multilingual election info
The Campaign for Voting Rights has urged the committee to endorse reforms including online and automatic voter registration, no-excuse absentee voting and using some of $10 million in unspent federal grants to pay for recruiting and training poll workers and volunteers.
The state Republican Party's legal counsel, Bill O'Brien, urged the committee to go in the opposite direction, making it harder to vote by absentee ballot. He also embraced the new law that starting in 2023 will make voters within seven days of an election produce proof of eligibility to vote or their ballot will be tossed out.
Secretary of State David Scanlan has already delivered on one reform proposal, to post multilingual printing on voter information.
Scanlan's team recently completed the printing of these materials in Spanish, French and Mandarin Chinese.
Last April, Scanlan opened talks on this project with the Language Bank, a professional translation service.
"As the administrator of elections in New Hampshire, the Secretary of State's office strives to ensure everyone who is qualified to vote is given equal opportunity to do so," Scanlan said in a statement.
"Part of this effort includes making important election information more accessible to foreign-language speaking citizens. This diversification of voting resources reflects the growth of cultural diversity among New Hampshire's citizenry."
Conservative critics of election practices and ballot access have testified at all meetings of this voter confidence panel.
They oppose the use of old and less reliable, electronic voting machines and say it's far too easy for out-of-state residents to pose as living here and legally being able to cast a ballot.
Other findings of this poll included:
—Local officials: 83% said they were confident local election workers could fairly run the 2022 elections;
—Hand counts: 38% said hand counting was a "very accurate" method of counting ballots while 48% felt that way about ballots that go through electronic scanning machines;
—ERIC membership: 82% supported New Hampshire joining the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC) to investigate potential cases of voter fraud. Maine, Rhode Island, Vermont and Connecticut are among the 31 member states that use ERIC;
—Open absentee voting: There was a closer split over letting anyone get an absentee ballot and cast it by mail. The idea had 93% support among Democrats but only 24% among Republicans. Among all voters, 56% liked the idea and 40% did not.
