November 6, 2024

There has been some concern raised about what had transpired at the November 5th State General Election and in an effort to be fully transparent we are providing this statement-of-fact as to what had occurred, what actions the Alton election officials took, and the resolution.

At about 10:30 am on election day in Alton, the ballot counting machine began to reject ballots at random. At 10:45, election officials shut down the ballot counting machine and began to offer voters the choice of placing their ballots in a locked, steel ballot box or to wait an unknown period of time for the machine to be repaired. At about 12:15 pm, a replacement ballot counting machine was in operation, and no more ballots were cast into the steel ballot box.

During the time the ballot counting machine was out of service, 200 to 300 ballots were cast into the ballot box. Those ballots, along with the absentee voter ballots received, were fed into the ballot counting machine as time allowed throughout the rest of the day. The polls closed as scheduled at 7:00 pm. The last of the ballots were fed into the ballot counting machine and counted by 8:00 pm.

The decisions that were made during this event were guided by contingency planning done by Alton’s election officials. The alternative to using the locked steel ballot box would be to close the polls until the ballot counting machine could be put back into operation. Closing the polls during voting hours, for an unknown length of time, could prevent some voters from being able to cast their ballots, so Alton's contingency planning avoided having to close the polls.

The ballot count for the election is 4,269 ballots cast, including 680 absentee ballots.
Every ballot that was cast in Alton, whether cast into the ballot counting machine, the locked steel ballot box, or via absentee ballot, has been accurately counted by the election officials and dedicated volunteers in Alton. The publicly available reports that the Alton Town Clerk will prepare and submit to the New Hampshire Secretary of State’s office over the next few days will reveal the accuracy of the results of the 2024 election in Alton.

Gene Young, Town Moderator
Jennifer Collins, Town Clerk