The attorney general’s office hasn’t found any voter fraud in recent elections, following the passage of the state’s voter ID law. At least, it hasn’t found any yet. Or, more accurately, it hasn’t found any yet so far as we know. “It’s an open investigation,” Assistant Attorney General Stephen LaBonte said in response to a query from The Telegraph. Because of that status, LaBonte declined to discuss details so far, such as how many people who voted without showing an ID have been contacted or whether any evidence of voting fraud has been uncovered. “We are following up with trying to track down the people who were sent verification mailings. … We have been successful in tracking down some of them,” he said. There are slightly over 2,000 names to track down. That’s the number of voters who didn’t returned postcards on time, confirming they had signed affidavits at polling places before voting in the November 2012 presidential election or in town and school elections in March. The affidavits, which swore to their voters’ identity, were required of anybody who lacked a photo ID; about 1 percent of voters in November signed them, and a smaller percentage than that did the same in March.
Following a roughly five-month deadline period after each election, 1,609 presidential primary affidavits remained unconfirmed, and 340 town meeting election affidavits were unconfirmed. (Some of the same people may be involved in both elections, of course.) Those cases were handed over to the attorney general’s office by the New Hampshire Secretary of State’s office, which oversees elections.
Under the voter ID law as it stood for these elections, voters who didn’t show photo identification, and who weren’t recognized by certain polling place officials, had to sign an affidavit swearing to their identity before they could vote. The affidavit included an address. Letters were later sent by the Secretary of State’s office to those addresses, with an enclosed postcards that voters was supposed to return within 90 days, confirming their identity. Officials have said it cost about $3 a letter to process the voter affidavits.
It’s now up to the attorney general’s office to contact, by phone or otherwise, those cases in which no postcard was returned and determine the circumstances.
Full Article: Voter ID law hasn’t uncovered fraud, but officials are still checking – NashuaTelegraph.com.