By DAMIEN FISHER, InDepthNH.org
New Hampshire Secretary of State Dave Scanlan’s refusal to give President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice data on New Hampshire voters sparked a criminal investigation into the long-time public servant.
The DOJ’s Civil Rights Division had been trying for more than a year to pressure Scanlan into handing over an unredacted state voter registration list, which Scanlan repeatedly refused to do. That pressure includes multiple threats from top DOJ officials to have Scanlan prosecuted.
Speaking to InDepthNH.org on Wednesday, Scanlan expressed confidence in his legal position, saying the federal threats do not bother him.
“No, I’m not worried,” Scanlan said.
Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, who was head of the Civil Rights Division at the time, sent Scanlan a letter in July of this year outlining the criminal laws at play if he did not hand over the data she wanted.
“In addition to the Civil Rights Division’s authority to seek injunctive relief for violations of [the civil laws], we are also authorized to prosecute criminal violations,” Dhillon wrote in one of the letters obtained by InDepthNH.org.
Dhillon was reportedly fired by Trump last week over her failure to prosecute election officials and supposed illegal voters ahead of the November mid-term elections.
In September, Acting Chief of the Civil Rights Division’s Voting Section informed Scanlan that he is under criminal investigation for not handing over the data, and ordered him to preserve evidence.
“Your failure to preserve relevant data may constitute spoliation of evidence, which may subject you to civil and criminal sanctions,” Eric Neff wrote.
InDepthNH.org did not receive a response from either the Voting Section or from Neff.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Neff was fired from his position with the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office in 2022 after he brought a botched case against a Michigan voting software company. An internal investigation found irregularities in Neff’s prosecution, and that he relied on election conspiracy theorists to build his case, according to the Los Angeles Times. The case against the software company was dropped soon after the alleged irregularities were found.
Scanlan is already fighting a legal battle against Trump’s DOJ, with a civil lawsuit brought by the federal government currently pending in the First Circuit Court of Appeals. United States District Court Judge Joseph LaPlante sided with Scanlan in June by dismissing the DOJ’s lawsuit, sending the case to appeal.
Again, Scanlan is confident he and New Hampshire will prevail in the civil case.
“We’re right, and they’re wrong,” Scanlan said.
Scanlan was elected in 2022 and previously served as deputy secretary of state, starting in 2002 and had served in the state House from 1984 to 2002.
Scanlan is facing a potential challenger for his job once the new legislature is sworn in. The New Hampshire Secretary of State is elected by the House of Representatives. Some members of the new Democratic majority in the House have expressed displeasure for Scanlan’s election management, saying his enforcement of election law led to voter disenfranchisement.
After the state Legislature passed HB 323 and Gov. Kelly Ayotte signed it into law, Scanlan issued guidance to election officials confirming that student IDs could not be used to register to vote or obtain a ballot. In early October, a U.S. District Court for New Hampshire judge reversed this guidance and Attorney General John Formella sought a stay before the U.S. Supreme Court, which upheld the ban on using student identification cards to vote.
Scanlan is a registered Republican, though his role is largely non-partisan. He took over from William Gardner, the Democrat who served for for decades as Secretary of State. In his time, Gardner faced similar anger from Democrats for the way he enforced state voting law.