DERRY, NH – Just over a week until Election Day and officials in New Hampshire are not only under added pressure to ensure a fair and safe process, they are also struggling to find people willing to serve as pollster to work.
“We run the test ballots through the machine, we have to go through them four times,” said Derry City Clerk Tina Guilford.
‘We are here to do our job’
These are the kinds of safeguards she believes are built into the election process. Test ballots in eight machines are inserted multiple times, the numbers between machines must match. The machine head is then sealed until Election Day and Guilford said she feels more in control than ever before.
“We’re not here to play partisan politics, we’re here to do our job,” Guilford said.
Doing this work hasn’t been easy, and Guilford says even getting poll workers to work on election night is a struggle.
“A lot of people have told me that they’ve worked on elections in the past and they’re just not interested because of the environment, because they call it toxic,” Guilford said.
Political tensions have been high since former President Donald Trump lost re-election in 2020, claiming the election was stolen. It’s raising suspicions among election workers, and Guilford has felt it.
“I am a communist, fascist and not called nice,” Guilford said. “They are unhappy and they take it out on the person they can get their hands on.”
Promise transparency
At Manchester City Hall on Friday, the line stretched outside as voters registered. There is great interest in elections, which has also prompted calls for elections manager Thomas Hilton, who said he can only promise transparency.
“I understand where these people are coming from, that it’s their process,” Hilton said. “I think people are concerned, they want to know that their vote counts, as it should. And so I totally respect that and I’m glad we can answer those questions for those people.”
Newly trained pollster Jim Dietzel said he wants to be part of the process.
“If I, as an everyday citizen, who is not an insider, can go out and say to the public, ‘No, everything is really on the up here,’ I think it gives people a lot of confidence,” Dietzel said.
There is no early voting in New Hampshire, only absentee ballots, so Election Day is expected to be particularly busy.
Bet Germano
