The Windems
Citizen Petitioned Warrant Article to ban Voting Machines
The petition was submitted to the Windham Town Clerk by a group called the Marigold Coffee Club, an organization that is pushing the elimination of voting machines across the state. The group's website does not identify who is on the board or their funding sources.
We hope to defeat this petition at the deliberative session in order to keep our town's elections from being pushed into chaos by those who, we believe, are attempting to undermine confidence in our local and national elections. Please reach out to the Windham Democratic Town Committee if you would like more information on this petition or details on ways you can help.
Recommendations for participation at the Town Deliberative Session:
Talking points for speaking against the petition:
1. The Windham Voting Machines:
We hope to defeat this petition at the deliberative session in order to keep our town's elections from being pushed into chaos by those who, we believe, are attempting to undermine confidence in our local and national elections. Please reach out to the Windham Democratic Town Committee if you would like more information on this petition or details on ways you can help.
Recommendations for participation at the Town Deliberative Session:
- Listen respectfully to the Moderator and all who are recognized to speak
- Let the backers of the article speak first, but you don't need to take on or defend against their talking points; stick to the talking points we have provided
- When you are recognized to speak, keep your comments short, using a few of the talking points, but you don't need to recite all of them.
- As a group, we should try to touch on all of the talking points. It's fine to repeat or echo someone else's comments when you speak.
- Avoid making partisan comments; this is not a partisan issue.
Talking points for speaking against the petition:
1. The Windham Voting Machines:
- Are AccuVote ballot counting machines, the only voting machines that are approved in NH by the Ballot Law Commission
- Are used by over 70 city wards and over 100 towns throughout the state
- Are strictly vote tabulators; they have no other function
- Are not connected to the internet; they cannot be hacked (by state order, the machine’s modem and hardware for reporting or receiving via the internet has been removed, sealed or disabled)
- Are maintained and serviced regularly by LHS associates, who maintain voting machines throughout the state
- Are more accurate than hand counting of votes. (Optical Scanners are better counters than people)
- From the NH Ballot Law Commission's report, "In summary, the Commission finds that the discrepancies in Windham in November,2020 were the result of a unique set of circumstances, not the result of malfunctioning of the ballot counting devices, and are not likely to reoccur. The Commission finds that the presently authorized AccuVote machines are capable of continuing to meet the requirements for elections held in New Hampshire."
- Will be a burden on our town officials and volunteers, requiring more volunteers, or requiring the same volunteers to work longer hours. Windham has many more voters than towns that count by hand.
- Will delay election results for several days due to the manual efforts.
- Of the NH towns that hand-count ballots, the average population is 1,251. The population of Windham is 15,817.
- The AccuVote machines were not the problem, the problem was how some ballots were folded
- There was an error in how the absentee ballots were folded, such that a crease was created over a candidate’s name, causing a counting error
- There was no voter fraud in Windham
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