In November 2020, eight candidates ran for four Rockingham District 7 state representative seats to represent the town at the Statehouse. Roughly 10,000 people voted in the election and when the votes were added, Democrat Kristi St. Laurent, running in her sixth campaign for public office, fell 24 votes short of obtaining the fourth place seat.
The tight outcome allotted for an automatic recount and St. Laurent, like 16 other candidates in 2020, asked one to see if she could get votes to make up the difference. After a hand recount though, she lost 99 votes. The four Republicans who won the seats got between 297 and 303 votes each. Three other Democrats, who were all frustrated, too, got between 18 and 28 votes.
WATCH: THE FASCINATING STORY OF BRIDGETTE GABRIEL
Since New Hampshire law only allows for a single recount, a second recount was not held. The optical scanning machines were further not analyzed. Everyone was left wondering, confused, how such a "bizarre and massive discrepancy" of votes, as St. Laurent called it, could happen because it was statically and mathematically unlikely for such a shift to take place.
WATCH: JIMMY FALLON MOCKS UPCOMING PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE
St. Laurent petitioned the state's Ballot Law Commission stating, "Either the machines were programmed to reflect unwarranted adjustments in multiples of 100 to the totals of all Republicans and the top voter receiver among Democrats or a significant number of ballots were double-counted during the (recount) process." That double-counting, she continued, "doesn't explain to any degree why my count would drop by 99."
NANCY PUTS IN HER REQUEST FOR SENTENCING OF "CRAZY HAMMER MAN" THAT ATTACKED HUSBAND
The AccuVote machines in New Hampshire have been in use for over a quarter of a century. They use Global Election Management software and were initially manufactured by Unisys and then by Global Elections Systems Inc., which are no longer in business. Dominion Voting Systems, whose machines reported errors in swing states throughout the nation and is now involved in many defamation lawsuits, owns the intellectual property of the AccuVote machines and its related election management system.
The Ballot Law Commission asked the New Hampshire Attorney General's Office to look into the matter. In January, Nicholas Chong Yen, an assistant attorney general who heads up the election unit, asked a number of investigatory materials from town officials though was limited in his capacity and reading of state law on what he could actually do.
Discover alternative ideas that will make you think
Engage in mind bending debate
Earn points, rise in rank, have fun
