Election monitors have been appointed in Windham, Bedford and one ward in Laconia for the Sept. 13 New Hampshire primary after problems were found in vote counting or the administration of elections in November 2020, the attorney general’s office said.
The office said in a news release Monday that the monitors are appointed to work with election officials and review the conduct of the upcoming election to ensure compliance with state law.
Following the November 2020 election, the Windham election review found “administrative shortcomings and significant inaccuracies in vote counts due to the processing of incorrectly folded ballots,” the office said.
In Bedford, the election review found that election officials inadvertently failed to count 190 absentee ballots “due to misplacing a container of ballots during election day processing,” according to the attorney general’s office.
The office said the Laconia Ward 6 election review found that “election officials inadvertently failed to count 179 ballots from 2020 elections that were cast but left in a ballot collection box, as well as some officials double-counting dozens of ballots” in the November 2020 election.
The election monitors are required by law to produce a report within 30 days of the state primary election.
