NH bill allowing pre-processing of absentee ballots clears Senate

New Hampshire town clerks would be empowered to pre-process absentee ballots ahead of elections under a bill that unanimously passed the Senate Friday. 

Senate Bill 537 would allow clerks to examine the affidavits that voters send in as part of their absentee ballots and to check them for errors. Under the bill, that work could be done within three weeks of the elections.

The bill would not allow those clerks to count the ballots or see voters’ choices. And the pre-processing dates would need to be posted for the public at least five days in advance. 

Sponsored by Sen. Donna Soucy, a Manchester Democrat, the bill is meant to help alleviate an often-hectic environment for New Hampshire poll workers. 

When voters cast absentee ballots, they do so with two envelopes. The outer envelope, known as the mailing envelope, contains another envelope known as  the affidavit envelope. That envelope contains the ballot. Absentee voters fill out an affidavit on the outside of the affidavit envelope. Under current law, election workers are not allowed to open the outer envelope until Election Day, meaning they are not allowed to review the voters’ affidavits ahead of time. That can create a backlog on voting day, and prevents town officials from alerting absentee voters ahead of time if there is an issue with their affidavit.

New Hampshire lawmakers briefly allowed towns to pre-process absentee ballots at the height of COVID-19. In 2020, the Legislature passed a law that allowed the procedure for the 2020 state primary and general elections; that year, a record number of absentee ballots were cast and processed. 

That law expired after the 2020 election; a 2021 effort by the Republican-led Senate to make the power permanent failed in the House.

This story was originally published by the New Hampshire Bulletin.