All eyes on Manchester now, as tabulation of absentee ballots could slow overall statewide results

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Poll workers at Manchester’s Ward 4 McDonough Elementary School plow through 700 absentee ballots on Election Day. Photo/Carol Robidoux

MANCHESTER, NH – As America waits for the results of what has been a high-octane presidential election with reportedly record-breaking turnout, all eyes in New Hampshire may end up on Manchester, where a large volume of absentee ballots in need of counting could delay the unofficial New Hampshire results. 

Deputy Secretary of State David Scanlan said he heard from Manchester City Clerk’s office that they anticipated results would be late.

“We expect that Manchester will finish up tonight, sometime –  it might be 2 in the morning, but they will finish. That’s a requirement. Once the election starts, it continues without interruption until the last ballot is counted,” Scanlan said, adding that Manchester results “could make the difference one way or the other,” in some statewide races making it impossible to call some races without Manchester’s tallies.

Manchester City Clerk Matt Normand clarified that his office followed instructions laid out by the Secretary of State’s office last week during a Zoom call, during which clerks were asked by Scanlan to notify him in advance if there was a possibility of late results.

That’s what Normand did.

But by 6 p.m. Tuesday Normand was still cautiously optimistic that the process in Manchester would be as efficient as humanly possible.

“We do expect results will be delayed as we have 16,000 absentee ballots that need to be counted. They’re working as fast as they can in between in-person voters,” Normand said. With high voter turnout across the city, the complication is the process for tabulating absentee ballots, he said.

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NH Deputy Secretary of State David Scanlan at the NH State House on Election Day. Photo/Ken Tran

“They have to take every one of those absentees and cross out the corresponding names off the official checklist, all while live voting is going on. For example, Ward 8 might have gotten through their absentee ballots before the polls closed, but other wards are still working through them,” Normand said. 

Even with preprocessing of absentee ballots, names could be highlighted on the checklist, but the actual crossing off of names had to be done on Election Day. That was the state guidance to all New Hampshire clerks. 

“That’s the hurdle that people at the polls are trying to get over,” Normand said. No additional manpower was available from the state for Manchester, so it will be up to volunteers at individual polls to get the counting done. 

“Given the magnitude of this election, I’m happy with the way things have gone so far. There were machine issues as there are every election, with 20-year-old tabulators they break. But we have two machines in every ward so that didn’t hopefully hang anyone up,” Normand said. 

His hope is that eventually, New Hampshire will adopt an automated system for the checklist. Until then, the tedious task of crossing off every name is a necessary step in the process, and that takes time.

Scanlan noted that Manchester is among those cities and towns with record numbers of absentee ballots, projecting a voter turnout of 800,000 in New Hampshire, with some 250,000 absentee ballots cast statewide.

“The other thing about Manchester is that they don’t have just the state ballot. They decided to have a vote on a city charter issue so there’s actually two ballots. And just that in itself is going to slow that process down,” Scanlan said. 


Kenneth Tran, Election SOS Fellow with The Granite State News Collaborative, and freelancer Pat Grossmith contributed to this story.

About this Author

Carol Robidoux

PublisherManchester Ink Link

Longtime NH journalist and publisher of ManchesterInkLink.com. Loves R&B, German beer, and the Queen City!