NH needs a trusted, modern-day department for the next presidential election cycle

POLITICS

Let’s be clear: Voting in New Hampshire has been made more difficult during the Gardner-Scanlan era as secretaries of state.

Often, Secretary Gardner or Secretary Scanlan led efforts or played key supporting roles to target certain groups of voters, such as college students, or by making voting more difficult in general for working people or seniors. Requiring voting during snowstorms and severely limiting voting by mail are examples of limitations that affect all voters. They’ve also given megaphones to those who falsely claim there is rampant voter fraud in New Hampshire and across America. Secretary Gardner lent New Hampshire’s good name to the Kobach Commission, and Secretary Scanlan convened the Special Committee on Voter Confidence that is currently playing out as a platform for those unwilling to accept the reality of safe voting.

Gardner and Scanlan’s antipathy towards inclusive voting should be reason enough to take a hard look at their agency before the next presidential cycle. However, there are other reasons as well. The office of the secretary of state has many duties beyond election administration, state recordkeeping and archival work. Its failure to perform all of its functions with competence and transparency raises legitimate questions and has likely cost the state’s taxpayers. The secretary’s refusal to fully cooperate with audits during Gardner’s 40-year term also justifies the completion of a careful state audit as power transitions from Gardner to Scanlan.

One example of a function not germane to recordkeeping or voting that should be carefully reviewed for reassignment to another state agency is the regulation of risk pools that act as health insurers for municipal and school district employees.

Although he had the power to regulate these insurance entities since 1987, Secretary Gardner did little more than uncritically accept their annual reports until 2010. For 30 years, these large insurers were unregulated. When rampant overcharging and misuse of funds became undeniable, and outside forces applied pressure to act, he filed suit and its $80 million in excess premiums were returned to local property taxpayers in 2012. One of the pools was also placed in receivership.

Unfortunately, Secretary Gardner never hired the actuary and policy professionals necessary to continue to monitor and regulate these complex insurance-type entities, and practices that resulted in the overcharging have reappeared, forcing local property taxpayers to pay higher premiums than necessary.

The Bureau of Securities Regulation is another example of a non-germane function that should be reassigned to another state agency.

The Bureau protects investors against investment fraud.

It performs a quasi-law enforcement function in a business context and should be affiliated with the NH Department of Justice, our lead law enforcement agency. The bureau negotiates fines and penalties that fund its own operations, creating the appearance of a conflict of interest. At least one very large, multimillion-dollar settlement languished with the secretary for a decade before Secretary Gardner directed the settlement money be paid to two colleges that he chose in a non-public, non-competitive process.

The secretary of state’s office also lacks transparency in many of its processes.

Under Gardner, it was the only state agency that did not adopt and publish rules to govern its practices and procedures. Secretary Gardner’s refusal to adopt rules or procedures to govern his work was based on a strained view of his authority to which no other agency or constitutional office subscribes. Basic transparency is paramount to building public confidence in our state government. The secretary’s refusal to adopt rules undermines this basic precept of democratic government.

To increase confidence in New Hampshire’s elections that have been repeatedly proven to be safe and secure, the secretary of state should focus on increasing transparency within its office and help ensure all eligible Granite Staters can readily participate in our democracy.

A national study on voting conducted by Northern Illinois University found that New Hampshire has become one of the hardest states in which to vote. The lead author commented on the phenomenon of making voting harder: “Forget voter fraud. States are influencing who votes by making it easier or harder to cast a ballot, and that’s likely shaping election results.”

The Secretary appears to have doubled down on its effort to complicate voting this year by backing SB 418, which allows certain ballots to be specially marked for later, postelection assessment in a way that could identify voters and their votes, make it harder for overseas service members to vote, and delay the reporting of election results for weeks.

Denying the validity of absentee or provisional ballots not counted on Election Day was a key component of the debunked effort by President Trump to deny his loss to President Biden. SB 418 creates more grist for this false rumor mill.

It will be challenged and likely cost the state a great deal of time and money to defend, as was the case in League of Women Voters v. Gardner that overturned SB 3, another law championed by Secretaries Gardner and Scanlan to address non-existent voter fraud but with the likely intent of unfairly limiting who could vote in our elections.

The time to carefully examine the operations of the secretary of state’s office is now. We need a trusted, modern-day department in place for the next presidential election cycle. The operations and procedures of the office should be transparent, and its finances should be regularly audited.

Kelsey Klementowicz of Portsmouth is a civil rights lawyer specializing in election law and administration. Andru Volinsky of Concord is a former executive councilor who represented Secretary of State Bill Gardner against the Local Government Center and other risk pools.