New Hampshire
Election 2024: Here’s how votes are counted in New Hampshire
CONCORD — On Tuesday, Nov. 5, votes cast in the presidential election in New Hampshire will be counted by voting machines, election officials and volunteers.
Read on to learn more about how votes are counted in New Hampshire, with information from the secretary of state.
How are votes counted in New Hampshire?
In New Hampshire, communities can choose to use machine counting of ballots or count by hand. Most use machine counting because it’s faster and more accurate. One hundred ten towns/cities and 67 wards, including most Seacoast communities like Exeter, Hampton, and Portsmouth, use AccuVote ballot counting devices. Fifteen towns/cities and six wards use VotingWorks ballot counting devices. On the Seacoast, Rochester uses both types of machines. Ballot counting devices count all properly marked races (meaning the oval is filled in) except for write-in votes.
However, 122 towns in New Hampshire, including the Seacoast towns of New Castle and South Hampton, haven’t switched to machines and still hand count their ballots.
Not all votes can be counted by machines: Write-in votes and ballots where the voter has marked their choice in a different way than filling in the oval, such as circling their chosen candidate’s name, require hand counting. In these situations, the town’s election moderator, who is chosen every two years by vote, makes the decision for how these ballots will be hand counted.
Seacoast NH election 2024 voter guide: Read about candidates, poll times, how to register
No matter how the ballots are counted, however, all votes are cast on paper ballots. None of the machines can connect to the internet.
How are votes hand counted in New Hampshire?
The most common, most accurate, and easiest method of hand counting is the “sort-and-stack” method. In this method, ballots are sorted into piles: one for each candidate, ballots with more than one choice marked, ballots with skipped choices, write-ins, and judgment calls. Then, counters and observers look through each pile, making sure they are only looking at one candidate or question on the ballot at the time. Each ballot is then checked three times and when the counters have agreed on the number of votes for each candidate, they enter it on the tally sheet.
Another hand counting methods is the “read-and-mark” method, in which counting teams count all races and questions in one pile of 50 ballots at a time, marking a tally sheet as they go.
More details on these hand counting methods can be found in the Counting and Recounts section in the 2022-23 New Hampshire Election Procedure Manual.
How are absentee ballots processed and counted?
Election officials can start processing absentee ballots at 1:00 pm on election day, or a different time no earlier than two hours after the polls open if properly posted 24 hours in advance.
Election officials process absentee ballots at the polls. To do so, they take ballots and affidavits out of their envelopes and check the name against the voter checklist to make sure they are registered and had not already voted in person. The ballots are then removed from the envelop and cast into the ballot counting device or ballot box. They are counted along with the rest of the ballots after the polls close.
What happens in a recount?
There are no automatic recounts required in New Hampshire, and election officers are directed to try to avoid errors that would call for a recount. However, a candidate can request a recount if the difference between the votes cast for the requesting candidate and the candidate declared elected is less than 20% of the total votes cast.
If a recount request is approved, the ballots from election night will be counted by the secretary of state’s team, one Democratic volunteer counter, and one Republican volunteer counter. They will recount by hand and each ballot will be looked at under a camera, by ballot challengers, and by observers.
State officials say the recount process is intended to be open and transparent. Anyone who is interested in seeing the process is allowed to attend the recount.
When will all the votes be counted?
The results tallying process takes place in the polls immediately after they close. A continuous process, the moderator will publicly announce the results after they have been tallied and reconciled. Any member of the public can observe this process.
Secretary of State David Scanlan expects polling places to announce results the night of the election or into the early hours of the following morning.
However, it’s possible the national result of the presidential election will not be announced on election night. Polls show the election between Harris and Trump to be very tight, and, in some states, counting the votes and certifying the results can take days, or even weeks.
President Trump announces new exemptions to tariffs
President Donald Trump announced new exemptions to tariffs signing as new executive order this week. Trump insists this will help lower grocery prices for Americans.
Fox – 4 News
Support for President Donald Trump’s handling of the economy hit an all-time low in New Hampshire, according to a new poll out of the University of New Hampshire Survey Center.
According to the poll, released Nov. 19, only 42% of New Hampshire residents approve of his handling of the economy, while 57% disapprove. That’s the lowest his approval has been in this area in either of his terms.
Both people who approve and disapprove cite tariffs as the number one reason behind their opinion.
For those who disapprove, the next top reasons, following distantly, are because of the price of goods, because they believe Trump is self-interested or has a poor character and because of the cost of living.
Of those who approve, tariffs are followed by spending or the budget, price of goods, energy prices and because they believe him to be better than his predecessors.
While New Hampshire approval of Trump’s economic policies has fallen, his support overall has remained largely the same: 45% approve and 54% disapprove, giving him a net approval rating of -8 that is statistically unchanged since October.
The poll surveyed 1,402 New Hampshire residents between Nov. 13 and Nov. 17. The margin of error is +/- 2.6%.
How do NH residents feel about the end of the government shutdown?
The government shutdown is now over after some Senate Democrats, including New Hampshire Sens. Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan, made a deal to reopen the government in exchange for a reversal of federal worker layoffs and a promise for a vote on extending Affordable Care Act subsidies.
Many national Democrats opposed the deal as it didn’t guarantee an extension of the ACA tax credits that the party had demanded for weeks. In New Hampshire, half of residents support extending the subsidies, including 93% of Democrats and 53% of Independents. It perhaps follows then that 68% of Democrats and 60% of Independents oppose the deal ending the shutdown.
However, overall, 52% of Granite Staters support the deal, including 87% of Republicans, 27% of Independents and 24% of Democrats. And there is broad agreement among New Hampshire residents (95%) that all federal workers who were furloughed or who continued working during the shutdown should receive backpay.
Should Trump sink boats off Venezuela coast?
The survey also looked at approval of Trump’s handling of foreign affairs, finding that 54% disapprove and 44% approve, making a net approval rating of -10 that is statistically unchanged since October.
Half of Granite Staters disapproved of the U.S. military sinking civilian boats off the coast of Venezuela that it claimed were involved in drug trafficking. However, it is heavily split by party, with 92% of Democrats disapproving and 83% of Republicans approving.
These actions have appeared to be part of a pressure campaign aimed at Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, who Trump seems to blame for drugs and gangs on American streets. While he has not yet made a decision about what he plans to do in the country, all parties in New Hampshire oppose an attempt to remove Maduro from power.
New Hampshire moved this week to foster the state’s first effort toward establishing a $100 million bitcoin bond, which would be directed by a state entity but backed by a private-sector firm, according to those involved with the effort.
The New Hampshire Business Finance Authority authorized “$100,000,000 bonds for a project to acquire and hold digital currency,” according to the description on its agenda. The NHBFA doesn’t direct state-backed bonds, but encourages private-sector entities to administer them. If that happens with this bond, the New Hampshire Executive Council will review the deal and vote on whether to approve it.
Once approved, the project will go live — the first of its kind in the nation.
The NHBFA is a self-funded, state-created organization meant to foster New Hampshire’s economic development. Proceeds from its bond projects return to the entity to help bolster its operation.
State Representative Keith Ammon, a longtime advocate for crypto policy in New Hampshire, said this first bitcoin bond effort is meant to be a template for more to come.
“Bitcoin can partially insulate our state’s runaway inflation,” he said in an interview with CoinDesk. “This is like training wheels to get to that point, protecting our state’s finances from future devaluation of the dollar.”
He said the two-year bond would be reliant on a rising value for bitcoin.
In this past year, BTC is down about 6%, after having climbed steadily for months before its sharp decline beginning last month.
New Hampshire has been in the forefront of state governments pursuing crypto policies. The New England state was the first to establish a crypto reserve earlier this year, moving much more quickly than the federal government, which is still in the planning stages.
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