By PAULA TRACY, InDepthNH.org

ROCHESTER – Voter turnout could be as high as 75 percent and will definitely break state records, the Secretary of State said Tuesday afternoon.

After touring a number of Southeast New Hampshire polling locations, including Greenland, Durham, and Dover, Secretary of State David Scanlan came to Rochester and said voter turnout was spectacular so far with no major problems in terms of safety and security.

He came with former U.S. Rep. Dick Swett, D-NH, who serves on a national panel on voter integrity and said he is learning what differentiates New Hampshire from the rest of the nation that could help other locations with voter confidence.

The lines were snaking around the Chamberlain Street School in Rochester, when the polls opened and Ward 2 voters there waited as long as 45 minutes to cast their ballots.

That was seen across the state, at times, with ballot clerks and moderators reporting some of the heaviest turnout they had ever seen in any election.

And things were going smoothly.

By about 2 p.m., Scanlan found about 50 people standing in line at the Rochester Ward 2 location, but the wait time was down to fewer than 10 minutes with voters placing their ballots in a counting machine.

Scanlan said there had been no problems reported to him at the polls and that the day was proceeding peacefully. If anything his prediction of a record 824,000 New Hampshire voters participating in the General Election was likely “too low…I like to be a little low rather than a little high. If you look at the voting age population and where New Hampshire has come in on a percentage basis, votes cast of voting age population, in the 72 percent range, and I was just under that with my number, this turnout could be up closer to 75. We’ll see.”

“It’s been smooth,” Scanlan said with no major issues.

The only minor issue he said was several precincts had petitioners file to postpone processing absentee ballots until the polls close.

He said no reason was given for the requests which he heard had been in Durham and Londonderry while Windham decided to postpone on their own.

“It’s going to take more time at the end of the night,” Scanlan said of the consequences of that decision.

Along with the record turnout, Scanlan had predicted a high number of election-day registrations and that was proving to be the case, and he said it was going smoothly.

Scanlan said he would not be surprised if there were more than 100,000 new voter registrations Tuesday.

Scanlan noted that after the statutory checklist verification in 2021, more than 175,000 names of inactive voters were removed from the voter checklist. 

Many of these voters were expected to re-register on election day while in some communities particularly college towns such as Durham, Hanover and Plymouth, many new voters were added to the rolls for the first time.

Presidential elections always bring out the largest number of voters.

In Moultonborough, Deputy Secretary of State Erin Hennessey arrived early in the morning to help with the post-election audit of one of eight randomly selected ballot counting devices, which is in accordance with SB 489 (2024) and Ballot Law Commission Order 2023-3.

She was met by Julia Marchand, Moultonborough’s Town Clerk. She said this was the second time the machines were used but the first time there was a much smaller number of voters. 

Fewer than 100 towns now hand count their ballots and the ballot counting devices have become the norm.

Scanlan said now about 90 percent of all ballots cast in New Hampshire go through such a machine while small towns still use boxes where people deposit their ballots which are counted after the polls close.

Both Rochester’s Ward 2 and Moultonborough were among the eight machines to be randomly audited. The two communities use machines by Voting Works to tabulate results.

The actual post-audit of those devices will be on Wednesday at 1 p.m. at state archives in Concord.

Other polling locations, which use AccuVote Ballot Counting Devices and were selected to be audited are ones for Bedford, Hudson, Laconia Ward 3, Manchester Ward 3, Somersworth Ward 4 and Walpole.

Those will be audited at the same spot but on Thursday at 8 a.m.

The moderators in each location were notified after polls opened on November 5. Just one device from each location will be audited. 

State Sen. James Gray, R-Rochester, who is also a long-time moderator in his city and running for another term, will be among those observers and he met at Ward 2 as well with Scanlan and former Congressman Dick Swett.

Two years ago, Swett, a Democrat, co-chaired the Special Committee on Voter Confidence with Republican Brad Cook.

“We listened to people all over the state and put together a report which has already been acted on,” by the legislature.

Swett said he now serves with former U.S. Sen. John Sununu, R-NH as co-chairs of the National Democracy Defense Project. The two serve along with representatives from seven swing states on that project with the aim of helping enhance voter confidence.

The reason New Hampshire is on that board, while not a battleground state this year, is because in a nationwide poll by the project, New Hampshire scored the highest in public confidence. Voters believe they can trust New Hampshire’s electoral process more than in any other state, the poll found.

“We are watching this election take place and we are going to work with the seven battleground states to help them better understand how they can build confidence,” with their voters, Swett said.

He said he wanted to be careful not to be “too full of ourselves,” but said New Hampshire has a good example for other states to pattern their practices to help ensure voters have faith in the process they participate in that their vote is accurately counted.

Other parts of the country claim they can’t count all their ballots by midnight, Swett said.

“That is absolutely foolish,” Swett said, “If you have enough counters you have enough people and machines to do the counting, you can get everything done by midnight and it is best to have it done the night of the election, not dragging on for days if not weeks afterwards.”

This extended time frame Swett said can be part of what leads to voter lack of confidence.

Another thing New Hampshire has is local people being elected and volunteering in their communities where the voting is taking place.

“So the people who are running the election are known to the voters,” he said, and that sort of familiarity adds to the high level of confidence.

“Everybody understands that we are all in it for the best of our community and for our country, not because we are being trucked in from some outside community that nobody knows and raises all sorts of doubt and suspicion.”

Swett said the Special Committee on Voter Confidence came up with more than two dozen suggestions to help.

Swett said the voting machines are more accurate than human counting but some voters are still skeptical and need to understand how they work.

Machines are tested before each election. None are connected to the internet so they cannot be hacked. And there is a paper trail.

Swett said voter confidence is the foundation of democracy and New Hampshire does it well enough that its best practices are being shared nationally.

The Secretary of State’s Office will tabulate the results of the election and expect to have many results available Wednesday.

To search for results visit https://www.sos.nh.gov/elections