Sununu signs Windham election audit bill
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Apr. 12—CONCORD — A forensic audit of election results from Windham will begin later this spring after Gov. Chris Sununu signed legislation Monday aimed at getting to the bottom of a major ballot discrepancy.
A hand recount three weeks after the Nov. 3 election found all four Republicans running for seats in the New Hampshire House had gotten about 300 more votes than were reported from automatic vote-counting machines on election night.
Last month, Secretary of State Bill Gardner proposed a process to conduct the audit, which he said would be New Hampshire's first in the 45 years he has been serving as the state's top election official.
"New Hampshire elections are safe, secure, and reliable," Sununu said in a statement after signing the amended bill (SB 43).
"Out of the hundreds of thousands of ballots cast this last year, we saw only very minor, isolated issues — which is proof our system works," Sununu said. "This bill will help us audit an isolated incident in Windham and keep the integrity of our system intact."
Gardner and Windham conservative activist Ken Eyring came up with a process that would require a team of hand-picked forensic analysts to examine the four AccuVote machines used to count ballots in Windham.
Among the potential analysts were two experts, Col. Phil Waldron and Jovan Hutton Pulitzer, who were involved in challenging the results of presidential voting in several states last fall.
The forensic audit would take place at the New Hampshire Police Standards and Training Council complex in Concord and be accessible to the public.
The plan calls for all ballots to be run through these four machines and for analysts to examine tapes from those machines.
The plan also includes a hand count of two races on the ballot in Windham other than the state representative contest at issue.
Last week, the Senate voted 24-0 to support the changes Gardner proposed for the final bill.
"We are pleased that the Senate and the House have reached agreement on this important and timely piece of legislation," said Sen. James Gray, R-Rochester, who chairs the Senate Election and Municipal Affairs Committee. "Ensuring the integrity of our election process is one of the most important responsibilities we have as legislators," Gray said.
The recount
The controversy in Windham began after a recount in the race for the town's fourth House seat between Republican Julius Soti and Democrat Kristi St. Laurent.
St. Laurent requested the recount after Soti was declared the winner by 24 votes on election night.
With the recount, Soti 's margin of victory grew to 424 votes.
The recount also uncovered about 300 more votes for all four House Republican candidates.
St. Laurent's vote total dropped by 99 votes, but the three Democratic candidates who finished behind her each gained 20 to 28 votes in the recount.
Many critics have seized on these results to question the accuracy of the automated machines used for elections in 85% of New Hampshire's cities and towns.
Nationally, conservatives who claim the presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump seized on the controversy to support their claims of subterfuge.
