HB154

I am writing in opposition to HB154 and a similar bill, HB693. I will submit the same testimony opposing each bill. I have served first as Deputy Moderator and ten as Moderator for the Town of Durham for over 20 years. I want to make clear that the position that I am stating are my person views and not those of the Town of Durham. I have also been chosen as a member of the post-election Audit team for the post several election cycles. Again, the views state here are strictly my own. Permitting a voter to insist that their ballot be hand counted allows them to ignore the choice of the voters of the municipality. For example, the voters of the Town of Durham, through its Town Council, have voted on several occasions, most recently unanimously this past December, to have the Town's ballots counted by a machine. These bills would allow some subgroup of voters to be treated differently than the rest of the town's voters and ignore the voters' choice. These bills would also impose an unpredictable and, in, situations a substantial burden on the Town election officials. Hand counting ballots is a time- and personnel-consuming process. Most ballots have at least a dozen offices, some with multiple positions. For primary elections, there are two such ballots. In addition, for a general elections, there may be ballot measures. The burden is unpredictable because it is impossible to predict before an election how many voters might choose to insist that their ballots ne counted by hand. It is therefore difficult to know how many additional election officials would need to be devoted to completing a hand count of all the ballots. Each office and ballot measure has to be counted separately. And please also remember that many elections officials will have been awake and on-duty fourteen or more hours when conducting the hand count. Durham has nearly 9,000 ballots cast in a presidential general elections, and a number of towns have even more ballots cast in such an elections. The potential burden is substantial. Which brings me to the final point that ballot-machine counting is accurate and humans, especially tired ones, are not. Based on my experience conducting the mandatory ballot-machine testing performed before every elections, at least 50 test ballots are pre-marked, hand counted, and then put through the machine in all four possible orientations. The machine tape results are compared to the results of the hand count of those ballots. The testing is repeated for each machine card and then repeated again for each ballot counting device that a municipality might use in that election. Based on my many years of experience, the machine results are very accurate and consistent. I have also participated in the post-election audits where the Secretary if State randomly chooses 8 ballot-counting devices for audit. All the ballots that went though a municipality's particular ballot counting device are put into an auditing ballot counting device and the results compared. In addition, at least 50 ballots from that device are then subjected to a read of that ballot by race comparison.by the audit machine and then by two audit-team members on a race. The reports of the results of the audits are on the Secretary of State's website. The audits confirm my experience that the ballot-counting devices are accurate. In summary, these bills impose an unnecessary and unpredictable burden on election officials, and allows an individual to demand to be treated differently than the rest of a municipality who have chosen a different method.

I oppose this bill because I think it is unnecessary. Our voting machines are accurate and hand counting is less accurate and would slow down the whole counting process.

One of the many things that are critical for our democracy is to ease access to voting and streamline and simplify the process of voting. We rely on automation for so much - we can certainly apply technology here and avoid human error.

There is no sound evidence of any widespread voter fraud. Making voting and the process to count votes more difficult is only harming our democracy.

Parents already have nearly all these rights. What this bill does is destroys the role of a safe, trusted adult in school for vulnerable children.

This bill appears to be brought forward out of the type of mistrust of hard-working oath-taking election officials that comes from conspiracy theory concerns about ballot counting machines being somehow hooked to the Internet and/or Venezuela. It simply isn't necessary, and increases the time it takes at the end of an election evening (when said dedicated election officials have already been on the job since about 6AM), so that hand-count ballots can be tallied and added to the Machine totals. The machines are tested carefully, and are extremely accurate. Please don't move this forward.

HB514 is plain not needed. It's unfortunate that the bill is being brought to the Election Law committee without evidence of a need for it. It's a worn, old excuse to vote against the bill because poll workers are tired at the end of the day to hand count instead of using the needed voting machine. Accuracy and efficiency matters! The voting machines work. For the smallest towns without machines, of course they do not have a choice. Besides votes per candidate, the machines are needed to provide the printed tapes to check end of the election day numbers.

I do not support HB 154. This bill would confuse and delay election results.

There is no need to hand count unless there is a recount or the machine is broken.

This approach to voting is the best means for reducing the polarization in our state.

HB154 would enable any voter to request to have his or her ballot hand-counted and the voter shall be instructed to place his or her ballot in the auxiliary compartment of the ballot counting device to be hand counted by election officials after the close of the polls. This would establish an alternate voting process required to be able to accommodate what would be, before the election, an unknown number of voters, potentially up to all voters completing a ballot. The consequences of such an alternate process would include additional handling with consequent additional new opportunities for errors, added time and personnel required, and additional cost when compared to machine processing of ballots. Granite State Taxpayers recommends a vote AGAINST HB154 Ray Chadwick, Board Member Granite State Taxpayers

Why? This seems to add an unnecessary (and evidently inaccurate) bureaucratic step to a working election process.

So we should put a human inside every ATM machine so we don't trust it. If the Machines don't work we would not be using them. If you are going to do this make everyone who wants their votes hand counted to pay a $50 fee.

Machine counting is a much more accurate way to tally votes. I was involved in a recount and the only significant changes were in towns that hand counted the ballots. Having a two tiered system adds unnecessary complexity and the hand counting increases the chance for error.

As an election official for over a decade, I oppose this because of 1) the extra work for election officials and volunteers and 2) the delay is announcing results at the end of elections which potential leads to mistrust by some voters of the process and outcome. Please make this bill ITL.

Good afternoon, My name is Karen and I live and vote in Bristol I oppose this bill because I believe we should not be adding more obstacles to counting votes.

Vote ITL on HB154 enabling voters to request to have their ballots hand-counted.

As a ballot clerk in Enfield, I am aware not only how much time this would add to getting the final vote count, but also that we are humans, and as hard as we try to be accurate, we are subject to errors! Voting machines can be relied on; there has been NO proof of fraud ever.

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I am a supervisor of the checklist. Before you ask for hand-counting of ballots, PLEASE attend a session of ballot machine testing, which is done prior to elections and open to the public as well as being an observer at the end of the evening when votes are counted/tallied. That should clear up any misgivings you have. Accuracy is of course the primary reason for considering hand-counting of ballots. But multiple studies have been performed that show the inaccuracy of hand-counting. "Verified Voting" based their conclusions on a number of reports from various parts of the country. https://verifiedvoting.org/election-system/hand-counted-paper-ballots/ Shasta County Elections Department: Analysis of Manual Tally Options for Shasta County (2023) Mohave County Board of Supervisors: Ballot Hand Tally (2023) Verified Voting: Election Officials Need a Helping Hand, Not Hand Count Legislation (2022) Brennan Center for Justice: Hand-Counting Votes: A Proven Bad Idea (2022) NPR: Hand-counting ballots may sound nice. It’s actually less accurate and more expensive (2022) Stephen Ansolabehere et al.: Learning from Recounts (2018) Montana Secretary of State: Hand Counting Ballots and Ballot Reconciliation Best Practices (2014) There are numerous other sources that can be found by doing a search of "accuracy of hand counting ballots" https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2024/nov/12/diamond-and-silk/hand-counting-ballots-is-not-more-accurate-than-ma/ https://votingrightslab.org/2024/02/27/ballot-hand-counts-lead-to-inaccuracy/ https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/hand-counting-ballots https://www.cbsnews.com/pittsburgh/news/hand-counting-ballots-explained/ And the list that discounts the theory of hand-counting goes on and on. Money shouldn't be the prime consideration for important decisions but most of those reports show what a huge obligation hand-counting would place on cities and towns. Quick/timely reporting of elections disappears pretty rapidly too. I just don't see good reasons to revert to hand-counts. Please oppose.