New Hampshire Votes on Vote Counting

Following the 2020 U.S. presidential election, some supporters of Donald Trump claimed that the election results weren’t accurate. They claimed that there was widespread voter fraud. More than forty lawsuits were filed to challenge the election results. Every single one of the lawsuits failed. But the fear that voting machines could be hacked and the ballots tampered with remained in the minds of many Americans. as Activists in the state of New Hampshire are calling for voting machines to be removed altogether, and for votes to be counted by hand. Here, Election Central takes a closer look at the situation.

What’s Happening?

Currently, the state of New Hampshire uses AccuVote to count ballots. AccuVote machines have been used since the 1980s, and while they plug into the wall for electricity, they don’t connect to the Internet. However, some people, including some Republican lawmakers, claim that the machines can be rigged or hacked. These critics are calling for them to be removed. Instead, they say, precincts should return to counting ballots by hand. Last week, about a dozen New Hampshire towns went to the polls to vote on whether to ban the vote counting machines.

The Case for Hand Counting

Some of those people who want the machines removed are afraid of a repeat of what happened in the town of Windham, New Hampshire. On the 2020 Election Night, the AccuVote machines produced an inaccurate result for one of the town’s legislative races. The machines were off by several hundred votes. It was later discovered that the reason for this was because some of the ballots had been folded incorrectly. This left creases that looked like votes to the machine’s scanner. AccuVote opponents are concerned and no longer trust the machines to produce an accurate result. But it also demonstrates that there are many human safeguards in place when using voting machines. The inaccurate votes were explained by examining the ballots and identifying the creases that caused a miscount.

The Case for Machines

State and local officials insist that the AccuVote machines are reliable and trustworthy. In fact, they are the only approved voting machines in New Hampshire. Before each election, the AccuVote machines are tested publicly for anyone who wishes to observe. (No one attended to watch this process before the most recent election.) Officials are concerned that hand-counting ballots could significantly delay future election results. New Hampshire Secretary of State David Scanlan has also stated that humans are much more likely to make counting errors than machines. The machines have safeguards built into them to prevent mistakes.

What’s Next?

During the March 9, 2022, voting, not a single New Hampshire town voted to eliminate the AccuVote machines. In fact, every town voted overwhelmingly to keep its machines. The House Election Law Committee was also considering a bill that would have required all New Hampshire ballots to be counted by hand in the future, but that initiative failed as well. Going forward, each New Hampshire city or town will be able to choose whether to count their votes by machine or by hand.

What Do You Think? Which do you trust more to accurately count your vote: a machine or a person? Why?