Jennifer Watson: She has suggestions for increasing voting integrity

To The Daily Sun,

As I am writing this, a large audit of the Maricopa County 2020 election results is taking place in Arizona, and a smaller one is slated to take place this month here in New Hampshire to examine the ballots cast last November in the town of Windham. Irregularities in the 2020 elections in many areas of our country have undermined the confidence of millions of Americans in our election process.

While we wait to see what will be the results of those two audits and the investigations that are being done in other states as well, we also need to look ahead and contemplate how we can secure future elections. Liz Harris from Arizona has proposed three measures to reduce the likelihood of voter fraud, and I think some additional measures would help us here in NH.

1.) Eliminate voting machines and use only paper ballots. Much of the concern about voter fraud revolves around concerns about votes being manipulated by tabulators and voting machines. Using only paper ballots would eliminate that possible source of fraud.

2.) Organize smaller voting precincts. Not only will this make it possible to hand count paper ballots in a timely fashion, but it will cut down on wait time making it easier to vote. After the 2020 election, cities and towns will have no trouble recruiting the necessary poll workers to do this, I predict.

3.) Continue to require voter identification as we currently do here in NH.

4.) Continue to require that absentee ballots only be sent out to registered voters who request them.

5.) Eliminate same-day registration, or at the very least, do not allow anyone to vote with an out-of-state license UNLESS they can prove that they are current NH residents by presenting evidence that they actually do live in NH (a utility bill or rent receipt, for example).

6.) Do not allow out-of-state college students to vote in NH even if they go to school here. Students should vote by absentee ballots obtained from their home states, since that is where they live and where they have the right to vote.

7.) Clean up our voter rolls, removing the names of dead voters or those who have moved elsewhere. I am unaware of this being a problem in NH, but by doing this we eliminate a potential opportunity for fraud.

These measures would go a long way toward ensuring that each voter gets a vote — but only one vote — and that NH voters do not have their legitimate votes cancelled out by fraudulent ones.

Jennifer Watson

Laconia