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Witnesses tell Election Law subcommittee absentee affidavit changes created chain-of-custody and verification gaps; witness urges statute-level fixes
Summary
The House Election Law Subcommittee heard testimony that changes to absentee-affidavit requirements and the use of an election procedure manual have removed a notarized start to the absentee-ballot chain of custody, creating verification and recount challenges.
The House Election Law Subcommittee spent more than an hour Friday hearing detailed testimony about absentee-affidavit procedures, the state election procedure manual and long-standing statutory definitions that Daniel Richard, a New Hampshire resident and frequent election-law witness, said have produced verification gaps in absentee voting.
Richard told the panel he has litigated election-law issues through the state Supreme Court and said the current practice, which he traced to a 1979 recodification of election statutes, removed requirements that began what he described as a lawful chain of custody for absentee ballots. "The notary certificate was just the sealing the deal, confirming that the process... We now have a lawful chain of custody, and everyone's being…
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