2020 is the first year that absentee ballot drop boxes are allowed for New Hampshire’s elections, but most towns aren’t bothering due to the restrictions on their use, despite high numbers of absentee ballot requests.
“Drop boxes will be permitted as long as they are staffed by a member of the clerk’s office that knows how to handle absentee ballots,” Deputy Secretary of State Dave Scanlon said. “There really is no difference,” in procedure, he said, between turning in an absentee ballot at the counter of a clerk’s office and putting it in a drop box.
Voters may need to show identification to the person supervising the ballot box, Scanlon said, and delivery agents such as extended family members, elder care directors and nursing home administrators must sign an affidavit and show ID as well, he said. There’s been some confusion throughout the state since many Town Clerk’s offices have drop boxes for turning in property taxes and other business, but those “have never been acceptable for dropping off absentee ballots,” he said.
Wilton is one town that’s still gone ahead with having an absentee ballot drop box. It’s a dedicated box set up on the windowsill outside of Town Clerk Jane Farrell’s office during business hours. It’s been inspected by someone from the state after they heard Wilton had a drop box, she said, and it was determined to meet state criteria because she can watch everyone hand their ballots off. So far, nobody Farrell doesn’t personally know has turned in a ballot, so she hasn’t had to ID anyone. It was worth doing because the Wilton Town Hall is still closed to the public, she said, so residents can’t otherwise just drop in and hand-deliver a ballot. Residents can schedule in-person appointments with the clerk’s office on the sidewalk, she said, and that’s how they’re conducting voter registrations. “We’re making it as doable as it can be for the public,” she said. She’s received over 200 absentee ballot requests this year, as compared to just 13 in the Sept. 2016 election.
“I have never had so many for a primary,” Antrim Town Clerk Diane Chauncey said, noting that many residents were requesting ballots for the November election at the same time as their primary ballot. The Town Clerk offices in Antrim and Peterborough aren’t bothering with drop boxes because residents can hand-deliver their absentee ballots during business hours. In Greenfield, where the town offices remain closed to the public, Town Clerk Dorene Adams has been receiving absentee ballots by the mail and at the office by appointment, “and it is working out fine,” she said. In Francestown, the Town Clerk’s office is opening from 3 to 5 p.m. on Labor Day specifically to give residents one last chance to hand-deliver their absentee ballots before the Sept. 8 primary. Peterborough Town Clerk Linda Guyette recently reminded residents that ballots may not be emailed or put through the Town House mail slot.