Concerns Raised About Pick To Work On Windham 2020 Election Audit

WINDHAM, NH — A Windham selectman is requesting a reconsideration of a political scientist appointed by the board to be involved in a forensic audit of voting machines and ballots cast during the 2020 general election after he was involved in efforts to stop an audit and inspection of ballots in Arizona.

Mark Lindeman, the acting co-director of Verified Voting, was appointed by the board by a 3-to-1 vote on Monday, to be the town's representative of a forensic audit of AccuVote optical scanning voting machines and paper ballots cast that will need to take place during the next month.

At issue are differing results between the optical scanning machine count and hand recounts in a state representative race. Four Republicans bested four Democrats in Windham for four state representative seats to represent Rockingham District 7. The highest vote-getter for the Democrats, Kristi St. Laurent, fell 24 votes short of winning. She requested a hand recount and the totals of all eight candidates shifted wildly: The four Republicans, it turned out, were shorted by four different amounts of votes between 297 and 303, St. Laurent lost 99 votes, and three other Democrats gained between 18 and 28 more votes.

The separation between St. Laurent and the Republican in fourth place, Julius Soti, went from 24 votes to 420.

St. Laurent called the recount a "massive and bizarre discrepancy between the results" with only two explanations — "either the machines were programmed to reflect unwarranted adjustments in multiples of 100 to the totals of all Republicans and the top voter receiver among Democrats or a significant number of ballots were double-counted during the (recount) process." That double-counting, she added, "doesn't explain to any degree why my count would drop by 99."

After the results were accepted by the state's Ballot Law Commission, the New Hampshire Attorney General's Office was asked to eye the machines and ballots. And after that, a law was created to allow a complete audit of the election in Windham.

Lindeman, according to the Verified Voting website, has signed at least two letters attempting to stop audits and recounts in Arizona for what appears to be political reasons — not respecting and questioning the firm hired to perform the audit.

In the letter to state Sen. Karen Fann (R-Arizona), Lindeman and others, including politically left-of-center organizations like the Carter Center and Brennan Center for Justice, called on her to end the audit of 2.1 million ballots cast in the county because an org involved in the count, Cyber Ninjas, is led by a man who believes there was fraud in the election. The letter writers said other audits "found no discrepancies" and also pointed to the joint statement from the Election Infrastructure Government Coordinating Council (GCC) Executive Committee-Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), issued nine days after the election, declaring that the 2020 election was "the most secure in American history" — despite never actually looking into any allegations of fraud, something could never have been performed in nine days and Chris Krebs, the former head of CISA, admitted to during a Senate hearing in 2020.

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Fann has told media outlets in Arizona that the state Senate's intent was a full forensic audit, something that has not been done. The goal, she said, too, was to restore voter integrity in the outcome, and allowing voters and residents who critical of the election results to eye the ballots themselves would, hopefully, lead to that.

In a second letter, released six days ago, Lindeman and others — including Common Cause, a progressive political organization, a number of Democratic activists, and voting research scientists and university professors, challenged the transparency of the audit and questioned its legitimacy — because it was not being performed by nonpartisan interests.

The letters came to light 24 hours after the vote to appoint Lindeman. After a number of lawsuits, the audit in Arizona began this week.

Bruce Breton, the board member who cast the lone vote against Lindeman, said his appointment needs to be reconsidered considering his actions attempting to stop an audit in Arizona. His appointment, he said, represents a conflict of interest. Breton also challenged whether Lindeman and Verified Voting could be trusted by the town or state considering he and the org were trying to shut down the audit in Arizona.

"I believe my colleagues on the board have made a mistake, and must have an opportunity to correct it immediately," Breton said. "It is with these serious set of circumstances in mind that I am compelled to respectfully request that my fellow board members reconsider their vote for Mark Lindeman at our next meeting May 3."

Selectmen Ross McLeod, the chairman of the board, as well as Heath Partington and Roger Hohenberger all voted for Lindeman. Jen Simmons, another board member, failed to attend the meeting.

Breton supported Jovan Hutton Pulitzer, an inventor and computer scientist who is also involved in the Maricopa County recount, supporting the effort of Cyber Ninjas to analyze ballots. He said he thought Pulitzer would "be able to forensically inspect the ballots, and accurately tabulate the vote totals that will be compared to the election day results as well as the recount results." Breton added that "thousands of people" requested the selectmen choose Pulitzer to be the town's forensic analyst designee.

"The interest and concerns exceed anything I have ever seen while serving as a Windham selectman," Breton said. "The decision we make as a Board on this important issue must not only reflect the will of Windham, but the will of NH as well, because the integrity of NH elections is being questioned, and the first-in-the-nation primary status is at risk."

According to Town Administrator David Sullivan, in the last 24 hours, the board has received 626 emails and 175 phone calls — with all but a few expressing disapproval of the board's decision to pick Lindeman.

It is unknown, at post time, if a reconsideration will take place.

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