OPINION | This article contains commentary that reflects the author's opinion.
New Hampshire’s election audit has possibly discovered why the results from the 2020 election were so far off from the hand recount, according to The Western Journal.
The audit was called because Kristi St. Laurent was short by 24 votes of winning one of four seats Windham.
When a recount took place she was short 420 votes.
St. Laurent’s first total was off by 99 votes.
Auditors are suggesting that fold lines in the ballots may be the cause of a miss count.
“Something we strongly suspect at this juncture, based on various evidence, is that in some cases, fold lines are being interpreted by the scanners as valid votes,” said Mark Lindeman.
“Wherever the fold happened to be was, I guess, most commonly through my name.”
“Because if someone voted for all four Republican candidates and the ballot happened to have its fold line going through St. Laurent’s target, then that might be interpreted by the machines as an overvote, which would then subtract votes from each of those four Republican candidates,” stated Philip Stark.
“Conversely, if there were not four votes already in that contest by the voter, a fold line through that target could have caused the machine to interpret it as a vote for St. Laurent.”
“Throughout New Hampshire, you’re using the same voting machines, the AccuVote, and in principle, it could be an issue,” Stark said.
“It really depends where the folds are in relationship to the vote targets.”
From The Western Journal:
The audit was triggered because of what happened to Democratic state House candidate Kristi St. Laurent. As of election night, she was short by 24 votes of winning one of the four seats of for grabs in Windham, a town of 10,000.
But when the recount was held, she was 420 votes short.
St. Laurent’s initial total had been overcounted by about 99 votes according to the recount, while the Republicans who finished ahead of her were undercounted in the initial tally.
The auditors tried to explain what happened in a series of tweets, noting one instance that showed a discrepancy between what was cast and what was counted, in which only 28 percent of the Republican votes cast were recorded accurately.
And the most frequent name to appear on a fold was that of St. Laurent.
Auditors said their explanation fits the outcome.
The audit is not complete, but if the initial conclusion is correct, it could have a ripple effect across the state.
In election jargon, a “vote target” is the equivalent of a candidate.
