Vendor: State's aging ballot counting machine can last through 2024
Jul. 12—CONCORD — The chief executive managing the aging ballot-counting device used in New Hampshire elections expressed confidence the technology can survive through 2024.
Jeff Silvestro, with LHS Associates of Salem, told the Special Committee on Voter Confidence that citizen complaints about the accuracy of the vote should go down once the state implements two new laws to randomly audit returns.
"Our intention is to support this machine through the 2024 election," Silvestro said.
For nearly three decades, the state has certified only the AccuVote counting machine for use in New Hampshire elections.
The machine processes about 85% of all ballots cast statewide.
The Ballot Law Commission and municipal clerks say these machines are so old that it's difficult to get replacement parts.
Silvestro said his firm does not have access to parts but can make do with existing supplies, which include a finite number of the memory cards that are no longer manufactured for this machine.
"Technology is phasing out this system," Silvestro said.
Earlier Tuesday, the Ballot Law Commission spent three hours getting a look at the next generation of ballot scanning devices New Hampshire could use in the future.
New laws could boost confidence
The commission already has approved rules that permit it to authorize other companies to supply machines to cities and towns with approval of local officials.
The voter confidence panel got a demonstration of the AccuVote system Tuesday from Patricia Piecuch, elections division director in Secretary of State David Scanlan's office.
Scanlan said New Hampshire has some of the largest polling places in the country.
"We want to make sure that our votes are counted properly," Scanlan said.
"There are plenty of mistakes that are made in hand count towns that cause problems."
Deputy Secretary of State Patricia Lovejoy spoke about two news laws that starting this fall will require audits of selected town ballots and also require that another race be counted when the state does 10 recounts of close state representative elections.
Silverstro said New Hampshire, Connecticut and part of Massachusetts are the only states still using the AccuVote machines.
"We see that the temperature is lower in other states that have random audits and other checks," Silvestro said referring to questions about the accuracy of ballot-counting machines.
An executive with VotingWorks also spoke to the panel; the group supports the use of "open source software" that reveals to the public the source code used with any ballot-counting machine.
