Election workers review ballots from Hampton as part of a recount in the race. (Steven Porter/Granite State News Collaborative)
As workers publicly recounted votes Tuesday from the Nov. 8 election for District 24 of the NH state Senate, they showed one ballot at a time, and observers responded over and over again with a single word: “challenge.”
The observers weren’t challenging each and every ballot, but they seemed to be raising a challenge every time they spotted an absentee ballot.
Challenges are a normal part of the recount procedure. They are used to flag concerns for the secretary of state to review and make a determination about how the vote should be recorded. Candidates who are unsatisfied with the secretary’s determination can then appeal to the Ballot Law Commission for another layer of review.
But the high volume of challenges raised on Tuesday added an uncommon layer to a recount process that was already unusual.
Republican candidate Lou Gargiulo of Hampton Falls requested the recount even though initial election results showed him losing by 3,683 votes, or 11.4 percentage points, to Democratic candidate Debra Altschiller of Stratham in the district representing seven Seacoast towns.
New Hampshire Secretary of State David Scanlan said he couldn’t recall what the widest margin was of any recount his office has conducted in recent decades, but he confirmed that this race ranks among the widest. Regardless, he said, he’s laser-focused on the task at hand.
“They’re exercising their right to challenge ballots, and we’ll conduct a recount,” Scanlan said.
Gargiulo Expects Sizeable Bill
Gargiulo was eligible to request this recount under state law because he lost by less than 20%. But since he lost by more than 3%, he’ll have to cover the full cost of the recount. That won’t be cheap.
The recount dragged on for more than eight hours on Tuesday, and was scheduled to continue Saturday. Workers re-tallied votes from Exeter, Hampton and Stratham, and they still have to work their way through ballots from Greenland, Hampton Falls, North Hampton and Rye.
Reached by phone, Gargiulo said Tuesday he expects to spend more than $2,000 on the recount.
“My team recommended it, and I stand with them,” he said.
Gargiulo said his team wanted to see what the outcome was for a hand-count versus a machine-count and also gain insights related to the absentee ballots.
“It’s not that easy to get this information, and doing it in a live recount provides us the ability to see all of those things,” he said.
“We’re just on a fact-finding mission to ensure the integrity of the process,” he added. “If there is an issue, obviously we’ll make that known. If there is no issue, there’ll be no issue.”
Gargiulo said he wasn’t able to attend the recount Tuesday due to a scheduling conflict. He confirmed Michael Bean was at the recount on his behalf. Bean declined an interview request.
State Sen. Jim Gray, R-Rochester, who watched the recount from across the room, said he wasn’t involved in the challenges and would need to do some research to understand their purpose.
“Before we get into session, I will make an effort to figure out exactly what is going on,” he said.
Campaigner Targeting Absentee Voting Advised Gargiulo
Daniel Richard of Auburn holds a copy of certified records Tuesday, Nov. 22, 2022, that he referenced while claiming that the NH constitution doesn’t allow certain excuses for absentee voting that are currently being allowed in the state. Richard said he urged Lou Gargiulo’s campaign to challenge every absentee ballot in the State Senate race that he appears to have lost to Debra Altschiller. (Steven Porter/Granite State News Collaborative)
Absentee voting is allowed in NH for certain situations. Those include religious observance, disability or illness, employment commitments or absence during the entire time the polls are open.
Daniel Richard of Auburn, a non-lawyer who described himself as a self-taught constitutional scholar, claimed some of the scenarios in which state law allows absentee voting are unconstitutional.
Richard, who attended the recount Tuesday at the state archives, said he advised the Gargiulo campaign to challenge all the absentee ballots.
“By challenging them all, now you’re forcing them into a court of competent jurisdiction to review whether those exemptions are valid,” he said.
Richard claimed the absentee ballots are relevant to litigation he has been advancing on this matter. Richard was behind a lawsuit that sought unsuccessfully this year to block the use of ballot-counting machines.
Gargiulo said members of his team have had conversations with Richard, and he said he believes his team is challenging the absentee ballots that “are not necessarily in compliance with the state constitution.”
Richard, who organized a group called the New Hampshire Committee of Safety, has been campaigning for at least two years against expanded use of absentee ballots. He spoke during a rally in Concord in December 2020, and filed a 10-page document with state officials claiming they “conspired to commit an illegal election” amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Gov. Chris Sununu, a Republican, responded at the time by saying the state’s elections were conducted with integrity and the results were affirmed by recounts, as Nancy West reported for InDepthNH.
“While some may not like the outcomes, our elections were fair, transparent, and accurate,” Sununu said.
Recount has Democrats scratching Their Heads
Debra Altschiller, the Democratic candidate who appears to have beaten Republican candidate Lou Gargiulo in the District 24 race for New Hampshire State Senate, watches with other observers on Tuesday, Nov. 22, 2022, during a recount in the race. (Steven Porter/Granite State News Collaborative)
Altschiller, who observed the recount in her race on Tuesday, said the state’s temporary, but now expired, expansion of absentee voting due to the coronavirus pandemic was great.
“We should have no-excuse absentee voting in New Hampshire,” she said. “That we require people to qualify for an absentee ballot is a form of voter suppression.”
Voters don’t know, for example, if they or someone they care for will fall ill on Election Day, Altschiller said.
“I voted in person, and I was thrilled to do that, but I had three children, and they are wildcards,” she added.
Altschiller said she would love to know why Gargiulo’s team seemed to be challenging every absentee ballot regardless of which candidate the voter had selected. She said she personally witnessed more than 700 challenges of absentee ballots from Hampton voters alone. Voters should rest assured the Secretary of State’s Office is counting every ballot, she added.
“I have been told that it is wildly unusual and also frowned upon to call for a recount when there is a comma in the number of votes that differentiate between the winner and the loser,” Altschiller said. “If Mr. Gargiulo thinks he can make up over 3,000 votes, I have no idea what electorate he’s looking at, but 11% is a very large number to flip over.”
Altschiller, a current state representative, appears to have won the seat that Democratic Sen. Tom Sherman vacated to run for governor.
New Hampshire Democratic Party Chairman Raymond Buckley, who was also among the room full of people observing Gargiulo’s recount on Tuesday, said the whole ordeal appears to be the product of a wealthy man wasting money on unsuccessful electoral ambitions.
"It's nonsensical," he said.
State officials have been conducting more than two dozen recounts for state representative races this week and last week, but Gargiulo’s recount is the only one for a Senate seat.
Melanie Levesque, the Democratic candidate who lost to Republican incumbent Sen. Kevin Avard in Senate District 12, also requested a recount, but she rescinded that request and announced she is running for secretary of state.
Levesque lost her Senate race by 688 votes, or about 2.5 percentage points. She faced criticism for requesting a recount in a race with that margin.
These stories are shared by partners in the Granite State News Collaborative. Steven Porter is the founding editor of Granite Memo, a website and newsletter that covers New Hampshire politics.
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