New Hampshire E-Voting Mess

Attorney General seizes Grafton ballots; results all in question after many counted twice

GRAFTON — The New Hampshire Attorney General’s office came to Grafton Wednesday and seized the 369 ballots cast during voting Tuesday and the machine used to count them, after an unknown number of ballots were counted multiple times, according to Town Clerk Mary McDow.

The president of the company that makes the voting machines said operator error, not mechanical problems, put the results of all the town’s elections and warrant articles in question.

But Town Moderator Bonnie Haubrich said readings from the machine never indicated there was a problem.

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“There’s not much I can tell you except that the counts are way off. They all could be switched for all we know,” McDow said. “I had no knowledge of this (Tuesday) night. It’s all the moderator that deals with the machine.”

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Haubrich said she did read the machine’s printouts, but they didn’t indicate that the machine had counted those ballots. It wasn’t until after the results were recorded and reported to the media that she realized the tallies didn’t match up with the number of ballots cast.