New Hampshire Leads, the Nation Follows - In Election Reform Controversies

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New Hampshire Leads, the Nation Follows - In Election Reform Controversies

On punch cards and audit trails, the Granite State has been there

By Dan Seligson
electionline.org
http://www.electionline.org/article.jsp?id=electionline_Weekly_--_September_25__2003


New Hampshire's election officials banned punch cards after numerous recounts yielded questionable results during President Reagan's second term in office. It examined the security and accuracy of electronic voting machines before most people had ever heard of the Internet. And it grappled with voter-verified audit trails - an issue now consuming activists, voting system manufacturers and election officials across the country - while the last Bush held office.

The Recount State

Why has New Hampshire already been there? It is likely because it has more elections, and consequently, more recounts, than anywhere else in America. "Everyone here is up for election every two years and at the local level, we have more offices than any other state," said Secretary of State William Gardner, a Democrat who has held the office since 1976

Recounts, as many noted during and after the Florida experience in 2000, reveal flaws in electoral systems otherwise hidden by large victory margins. Repeated recounts, however, allow for trial and error for a number of different innovations in election administration. While the nation watched Florida during the presidential race, New Hampshire quietly held 26 recounts of its own to determine the winner in state and local contests.

Now the entire state uses paper ballots - both hand-counted and optically-scanned.