State audit doesn't change Laconia Ward 2 primary polling results

CONCORD — Results reported from Laconia Ward 2 in the state Primary Election remain unchanged following an audit by the Secretary of State's Office. The audit found few discrepancies, which were related to faint ballot markings and write-in votes.  

The voting machine from Laconia Ward 2 was one of 10 around the state to be selected for a random audit, conducted Thursday morning at the New Hampshire State Archives building. This comes after the state Senate voted in May 2023 to put a 2022 bill requiring audits in four towns and cities into SB 489, requiring the Secretary of State's Office to conduct at least eight audits in every Primary and General election.

Three poll locations were selected to be audited on Wednesday, locations using new Voting Works machines instead of AccuVote. Winchester, Loudon and Londonderry polls were audited on Wednesday, and AccuVote locations audited in addition to Laconia Ward 2 were Dover Ward 3, Lebanon Ward 2, Litchfield, Milford, Sandown, and Walpole.

Senior Deputy Secretary of State Patricia Lovejoy spoke to the audit selection process. The state was divided into four parts based on the number of registered voters, then they run a random number generator to pick each location.

“Durham's chances of getting picked are no different than the Manchester Ward 4. It's totally random, and that's what we do,” Lovejoy said. “This is trying to give voters a little more confidence that elections are accurately recorded.”

Laconia Ward 2's audit resulted in two discrepancies. One of 20 write-in votes cast on the Republican ballot for county attorney was recorded as an undervote, and candidate Gisele Lambert, running for delegate at the state convention, received one extra vote after the audit, bumping the number from 87 to 88. Neither of these results changed the outcome of the Primary Election.

The AccuVote machine used to tabulate the ballots in Laconia Ward 2 works accurately, but requires voters to fill in at least 12% of the bubble. Anything under that can potentially be marked as an undervote.

The audit results for the 10 polling locations were published in a report by the Secretary of State's Office on Friday.

Loudon and Sandown had no discrepancies. In the seven other locations, all differences from the initial count are within the expected margin of error, and there were no discrepancies in the physical examination of 50 random ballots from each poll. The audit didn’t change any of the Primary Election results for these locations.

In Dover Ward 3, three additional Democrat ballots were counted by the audit equipment than the number of ballots recorded on the AccuVote machine, resulting in discrepancies in all 14 races. Dover also showed the largest discrepancy, with an additional four votes for Chris Pappas. Milford also counted an additional ballot, this time, a Republican ballot. The report states that based on past audits and recounts, additional ballots not counted by the AccuVote may be attributed to jams in the device throughout Election Day.

Lebanon Ward 2, Litchfield, Londonderry, Walpole, and Winchester all had discrepancies which were counted as undervotes by their voting machines, which the audit corrected.

The audit process

To do an audit, all ballots from a voting machine are taken and run through a ClearBallot scanner, which evaluates all races, then provides the number of votes for each race. This is then compared to the number of votes recorded by the original machine. Afterward, 50 random ballots are selected for manual review, as a member of the audit team reads the vote cast on the ballot, and another team member matches it up with the physical ballot. This is to verify the accuracy of the audit machine. Lovejoy says the team takes the audit seriously because they want to ensure there is trust in the voting process, but also, depending on how close an election is, could change the results.

Lovejoy described the difference between the audit and a recount. In a recount, a losing candidate can request a hand-counted vote of their race. It is a more labor intensive process that can take a lot longer. An audit reviews all races, but not as thoroughly as a recount. Results of the audit are released by noon on the Friday after the election, because the deadline to request a recount is 5 p.m. that same Friday.

“If something were off by a very significant amount, we’d say there is a problem with that machine, and then it would be up to any candidate to request a recount for their race,” Lovejoy said.

Promoting transparency

The audit was open to the public. Mark Lindeman, policy and strategy director of Verified Voting, said he came from New York state to provide suggestions if needed, and observe the historic first audit after the new statute was put into place.

Verified Voting is a national organization which promotes policies for justified public confidence in elections. 

“These two days are the first time that New Hampshire has ever done quite this thing, so that is history,” he said.

Three other people came to observe the audit. Lindeman said the audit shows the scrutiny required to provide free and fair elections, and those who have distrust in the election process should have come to view it.

“People who have doubts and don't show up to learn, I think they're really missing the boat,” he said. “If you have questions, then you owe it to the country to get answers, otherwise you're just kind of crying from ignorance.”

Laconia City Clerk Katie Gargano came not only to represent the city, but also to answer any questions if they came up. She said Laconia Ward 1 was audited in 2022, and there were many more observers at that.

“I came to the last one added in 2022. There was a lot more people here,” she said. “The last time, it was the very first time that they were doing an audit.”

Lindeman reiterated the importance of the audit, and hopes people will engage themselves more with the process in the future.

“As you can see, the people in the room are working so hard on this audit, it's only fair for some people to show up and see what they're doing,” Lindeman said. “Because otherwise, they're just doing a lot of work that is supposed to reassure the public, and no one has bothered to see it.”