The NH Ballot Law Commission addresses election concerns

As noted in prior columns, this writer has the honor to serve as chairman of the New Hampshire Ballot Law Commission, the legislatively created, quasi-judicial panel that has authority to decide questions of qualifications to run for office, decide appeals from recounts of close elections, certify new ballot-counting devices and other matters assigned to it by law.

One of the jobs given the commission is to hold hearings within a certain time after filing periods, primary and general elections and to handle matters that arise during those events. In the case of a state primary, when all legislative seats, governor and council seats, county offices, plus congressional seats are the subject of possible contests for nomination to run in the general election, the potential for work for the commission is great.

This year, there were no appeals from recounts, which is unusual. However, there were, as it turned out, six matters on the commission agenda when it met on Sept. 19, at the State Archives Building in Concord.

The first order of business was the ratification of a vote taken the day before the primary by poll of the commission members, approving a minor fix to the software on the newly certified Voting Works ballot-counting devices, to repair an issue with jamming of ballots. While this has nothing to do with the accuracy of the devices counting ballots, jamming while feeding the ballots into the device can be a major headache for voting officials during elections. The commission members unanimously ratified the change, which statute requires them to approve. As it turns out, those towns using the new devices experienced no issues with them.

Next, the report of the secretary of state on a required audit of a certain number of results from voting districts selected at random was reviewed by the commission. The Legislature has required these audits as an additional check on voting results to reinforce confidence in election results. As expected, this year’s audit showed no issues out of the ordinary.

The first case brought to the commission was an interesting one involving Strafford County’s commissioner election. This year, for the first time, Strafford County joined all other nine counties in the state in electing its county commissioners from geographical districts rather than at-large, as it had in the past.

Due to an error in the legislative process, however, no requirement that candidates live in the districts they sought to represent was in the enabling legislation. In one of the districts, a candidate on the Democratic ticket also got more than 35 write-in votes (the required minimum for a write-in candidate to win) for the Republican nomination, and because there was no one who filed to run on the GOP ballot, was declared the winner on that ballot as well as the Democratic ballot.

This result was challenged by the GOP, who had hoped to name a candidate, which parties can do within a certain period after the primary, if there is no candidate. The commission voted unanimously to uphold the secretary of state’s decision. This could lead to the interesting result after the general election of having a Democrat elected as a Republican, but that is not the commission’s issue.

Next, the commission heard a case involving a state representative race in Cheshire County where an incumbent filed for reelection on the Republican ballot. After filing, the representative from Winchester bought a house in Chesterfield. He won the primary, and the next day informed the secretary of state he was moving from his district and had to resign from office and asked to have his name removed from the general election ballot.

The state GOP asked for this, as it wanted to name a replacement candidate. After confirming with the secretary of state that he had no objection, the commission unanimously granted the request, struck the former resident’s name from the Winchester ballot, and approved the named replacement being on the ballot.

In the final hearing requested in writing, a challenge to independent presidential candidate Jill Stein being on the New Hampshire general election ballot was heard. Stein’s supporters collected the required 1,500 petitions in each congressional district, submitted them all to the town and city officials required, and then submitted the certified petitions to the secretary of state.

After consideration, the commission upheld the secretary of state’s decision, and independent Stein will appear on the November ballot. What effect this will have on the fortunes of the major party candidates is unknown, although the challenge allegedly came from a group allied with the Democratic Party.

An interesting group of issues, largely invisible to the public, but important to the process.

Brad Cook is a Manchester attorney. The views expressed in this column are his own. He can be reached at bradfordcook01@gmail.com.