By NANCY WEST, InDepthNH.org
Hampton Town Clerk Shirley Doheny has been directed to resign by Aug. 9 by the state Attorney General’s Office because of “serious breaches of your duties as Town Clerk.”
“This office received information that you failed to follow several election laws during the Jan. 23, 2024, Presidential Primary Election and the March 12, 2024, Hampton Town election,” according to a letter to Doheny from Assistant Attorney General Brendan A. O’Donnell dated July 29.
The investigation found Doheny failed to follow numerous election laws, including omitting the affidavit envelope when sending absentee ballot materials to 79 voters for the primary election, processing and casting about 10 to 25 of those absentee ballots despite the ballots not being sealed in an affidavit envelope, improperly signing the activity logs for ballot counting devices used in the town election and failing to seal boxes of uncast ballots following the town election, O’Donnell wrote.
Additionally, the Town Clerk’s office made multiple errors when preparing ballots for the town election and the March 12, 2024 Hampton School District Election. “These errors resulted in the town having to reprint the ballots multiple times and to resend corrected absentee ballots to some residents, which both created voter confusion and delayed the absentee voting process,” O’Donnell wrote.
“Your actions demonstrate that you are not able to carefully and lawfully administer elections, administer the absentee voting process, and secure election records. Your actions are not acceptable and unfair to the citizens of Hampton, who trust that their election officials will properly follow all election laws,” O’Donnell told Doheny.
“This office further concludes that these failures and issues were ‘due to lack of training, lack of established procedures, negligence or misconduct,’” he wrote.
There is no mention in the letter of any potential criminal charges.
A message left on Doheny’s phone wasn’t immediately returned Wednesday night.
This Attorney General’s Office recommended that the Secretary of State’s Office appoint an election monitor to monitor the state primary in Hampton Sept. 10, 2024.
The investigation was prompted by a May 3 complaint from Regina Barnes raising concerns about Doheny’s office’s handling of boxes of cast and uncast ballots after the town elections, and on May 13 Deputy Town Clerk Beth Frongillo resigned and in an email reported numerous concerns about the clerk’s handling of the Presidential Primary election and town election, the letter said.
