State and local election officials say that while they are confident in New Hampshire’s way of preventing voter fraud, the system is not ironclad and relies ultimately on voters’ trustworthiness and respect for the law and dedicated local election officials.
“I think it is a very reasonably focused system,” Deputy Attorney General Orville “Bud” Fitch said yesterday. He credited the local officials, saying that unlike many other states, “in New Hampshire, the election officials are people who run for election themselves and are chosen by local voters to be moderators or supervisors of the checklist.
“They understand the nature of our election process and have a love for democracy,” Fitch said. “The depth of their belief in the process makes them do a good job.”
Fitch said another hedge against fraud in New Hampshire is that the federal “motor voter law” does not apply to the state because, he said, New Hampshire had a same-day registration law on its books before the federal law took effect.
He said motor voter “forces voter registration by mail and allows advocacy groups with a partisan incentive and in some cases an economic incentive to create registrations. Here there are very limited circumstances where people do not register in person.”
100,000 in one day
Deputy Secretary of State David Scanlan said Secretary William Gardner expects about 100,000 same-day registrations throughout New Hampshire on Election Day next Tuesday, about four times the number of same-day registrants in 2006, a non-presidential election year.
Scanlan said the state tries to balance a tight voter fraud prevention system with the overall right to vote and provisions of the federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA), which is in part aimed at maximizing participation in elections.
Election complaints
The U.S. Department of Justice will be overseeing complaints of election fraud and voter rights abuses in next Tuesday’s election in New Hampshire.
U.S. Attorney’s Office: Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Zuckerman will be on duty while the polls are open on Election Day, and can be reached with complaints and inquiries at 856-1406 or via e-mail through the U.S. Attorney’s Web site at www.usdoj.gov/usao/nh (click on the “e-mail us” link).
FBI: The FBI will also have special agents available to receive allegations of election fraud and other election abuses. The FBI can be reached by the public in New Hampshire at 472-2224.
According to local election officials in Bedford, Auburn and Londonderry, people who come to a polling place to register to vote are asked for photo identification to prove that they are who they say they are.
They are then asked for proof of domicile, such as a driver’s license, a telephone or utility bill, or some pieces of mail — “something that puts your name to your address,” said Bedford Town Clerk Lori Radke.
Some people produce a photo ID but no proof of citizenship or domicile, the officials said. Some produce information related to their domicile, but no photo ID. A few produce neither.
Even without such documentation, “we cannot turn them away by law,” Radke said. “By law we have to accept the fact that they are coming in to register.”
A person who cannot provide a proof of residency is required to fill out an official Domicile Affidavit or a Citizenship Affidavit, listing his names, address, date when the domicile was established and address of the most recent domicile.
He would then sign a statement swearing “under the penalties for voting fraud” — a maximum of a year imprisonment and $2,00 fine — that he is being truthful. The affidavit must be notarized.
“We would then ask them to raise their right hand and say out loud to us that they are swearing that the information they are giving is correct,” said Gerry Van Grevenhof, Londonderry’s supervisor of the checklist for 28 years. She said the new voter would then fill out a voter registration form, then a registration card, and, after his name is entered into the checklist, the voter then receives a ballot and votes.
Room for doubt?
How do local officials know that the person is telling the truth, that he is not a fraud?
They don’t for sure, said Van Grevenhof. But she said she believes “99.999 percent of the people are honest, and I would think that with our affidavits, if they have to raise their right hand and solemnly swear, I would think they would take that seriously.”
Radke agreed, saying, “I’m confident probably 99 percent of the time. Sure, there is always a little room for doubt. You want to trust everybody but there are some people you have to be careful of.”
Radke said she is “not a proponent” of allowing people to vote with virtually no proof of identification, domicile or citizenship, but said that she has been assured that the state officials will investigate questionable registrations.
Van Grevenhof said that everyone should at least be required to provide “something to prove they are who they say they are” before being allowed to register. But she realizes “it would be a real problem” and probably would spark complaints of voter suppression.
The state tries to do the next best thing, officials said.
According to Fitch and Scanlan, when a person who comes to a polling place to register cannot produce a photo ID, the local supervisor of the checklist or local election clerk types the name and address into the statewide voter registration data base.
The two officials explained that after the election, the Secretary of State’s office sends each of those voters a letter.
“It thanks them for signing up to vote,” Scanlan said, “and says that if by chance you are receiving this letter and did not vote, then let this office know immediately. Or if the mailing comes back undeliverable, we give it to the Attorney General’s Office and they will try to locate that person.”
“We do investigate that,” Fitch said, recalling only a few convictions.
“Otherwise,” said Fitch, “we instruct local officials, if they are faced with a circumstance in which someone satisfies the requirement of the law but they still have a concern and do not have evidence that it is more than likely that the person is telling the truth, to provide those cases to us and we will investigate them.”
Scanlan said local officials or any resident can challenge the validity of a voter’s registration information. In those cases, the voter must fill out a challenge affidavit, which, he said, will also be investigated, while the challenged voter’s name must still go on the checklist and his vote counted.
According to a report by the Attorney General’s Office to the Secretary of State’s office following the 2006 general election, 25,796 people registered to vote on general election day that year. Of those, 102 registered without using photo identification. After the verification letters were mailed to them, the Secretary of State’s Office requested investigation of three people, and all were found to have registered legally.
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Note: CNHT is very disturbed to see the UL helping cover for the SoS office when it comes to unprosecuted voter fraud. Once again we remind readers of a high profile case where fraud was clear and nothing was done. Geoff Wetrosky used the address of the Democrat Party Chair Kathy Sullivan, a lawyer who should have known better. I wonder what happened to his letter, since he was visiting but never lived there? He was in South Dakota by the time it would have been sent. Did Sullivan return it for him? Blatant fraud, not prosecuted. [click for larger view]
Here is the actual record showing the ‘borrowed’ address: Wetrosky Voter Record
Instead, Lynch and his cronies quietly passed laws to make challenging fraud a felony (voter intimidation) and erased much of the registration information one can request under RTK.
If the Wetrosky case was let go, what is to stop any one of us from lending our address to 8,000 people temporarily so they can vote here? We could easily swing an election that way.
We stand by our story that fraud exists and is ignored, every election.
Here is an example of bad domicile: Bad Domicile – Return to Sender