“As worst cases go, that’s pretty good,” Lindeman said. Ballots are safe. This will not prohibit New Hampshire voters from voting or having their ballots counted.” However, voting machine or ballot counting issues allow skeptics to throw doubt on the outcome. Trump, who won the Iowa caucuses but may struggle in New Hampshire, often predicts a tight election would be “rigged.”
He lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden, but his bogus accusations about rampant fraud sparked a wave of voting machine conspiracies.
“If there are major failures and results come really late, and if there is not information ahead of time to the public that we might be hand-counting and what that involves, the vacuum that leaves could allow folks to come forward with conspiracy theories and question the results,” said America Votes NH's McKenzie St. Germain.
Town Clerk Tina Guilford examined her eight tabulators this week in Derry, south of Manchester, to verify they were counting ballots accurately. The statewide procedure is repeated as local election authorities prepare for the primary.
Guilford stated Derry's tabulators are 20–22 years old and turn-of-the-century technology. The municipality bought replacements that officials expect will be installed by March when new tabulators are certified for use in the state.
Guilford said Derry, with over 20,000 registered voters, doesn't require all eight AccuVote scanners functioning at once, so they have choices if one fails. Hand sanitizer gummed up a machine in 2020 during the epidemic. New Hampshire's senior election official, Secretary of State David Scanlan, has advised local authorities to staff up for manual counting.
Since Biden skipped the state's primary in favor of a modified Democratic calendar that prioritized South Carolina over Iowa and New Hampshire, every jurisdiction will likely have to hand-count some votes. That led to a write-in campaign for him, and write-in ballots must be counted by hand.
Hand counting has become popular among 2020 election conspiracy theorists who want to prohibit voting machines and computerized tabulators. Most hand counting happens in small jurisdictions where it is manageable.
New Hampshire lawmakers rejected a hand-counted vote plan last year. Studies suggest machines are faster and more precise, say experts. Many election officials use hand counting to check machine operation after the election. Scanlan has been telling voters that certain machines have issues and that election officials will fix them, even if it delays results.