REPORT: 5,000-Plus Out-of-State Voters May Have Tilted New Hampshire Against Trump, Ayotte in 2016

Printed from: https://newbostonpost.com/2017/09/07/report-5000-plus-out-of-state-voters-may-have-tilted-new-hampshire-against-trump-ayotte-in-2016/

Voter data released following a request by Republican New Hampshire House Speaker Shawn Jasper alleges that more than 5,000 out-of-state voters crashed the Granite State on Election Day last November, where Democrat Hillary Clinton topped Republican Donald Trump by a little more than 2,700 votes while Republican Kelly Ayotte saw her bid to retain her U.S. Senate seat dashed by just over 1,000 votes. 

The findings were released by Jasper on Thursday after the Republican  from Hudson called on the New Hampshire Department of State and the Department of Safety to investigate rumors of election fraud:

The findings indicate that more than 6,500 people took advantage of New Hampshire’s same-day voter registration law but registered themselves using out-of-state driver’s licenses. The data, according to Jasper’s release, showed that only about 15 percent of the same voter pool applied for and were issued New Hampshire driver’s licenses. The remainder, which totaled 5,526 voters, saw only 3.3 percent of that sum had registered a motor vehicle inside the state, despite the Granite State’s citizen-friendly excise tax exemption. 

More than 81 percent of the voters identified in the investigation who used an out-of-state driver’s license “had neither held a New Hampshire driver’s license nor had registered a vehicle in New Hampshire.” 

According to Jasper, 196 individuals who appear on the list are now being investigated “as possibly having voted in New Hampshire and one other state.” 

Jasper sent his inquiry request to the state and safety departments on August 16, seeking “statistical information on the efforts of both departments to match voter checklist information with records of the Department of Safety.” 

In a prepared statement released Thursday, Jasper said he “appreciates the the work our state agencies do to ensure they meet the requirements of our existing election laws, and maintain these important statistics.”

The findings come after numerous Republican allegations that Massachusetts residents and others illegally voted in New Hampshire in order to tilt the outcome towards Democrats like Hillary Clinton, who bested Trump by 2,736 votes, and Senator Maggie Hassan, who beat Ayotte by 1,017 votes. 

Trump, following his inauguration, had controversially claimed that voter fraud affected the New Hampshire outcome. A trio of Boston Globe journalists later produced a story declaring Trump’s allegation “groundless.” The Globe followed up that story with additional reports, including one that deemed Trump’s claim “a myth.”

Trump later received more pushback after his administration formed a panel to investigate allegations of voter fraud in all 50 states. In Massachusetts, Secretary of State William Galvin vowed not to participate with Trump’s investigation. 

Republican New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu, however, announced in June he would assist with the panel’s investigation by supplying the White House with Granite State voter data. Last November, Sununu drew scorn from the left when he claimed that people were being bused-in from out-of-state to vote in New Hampshire.

New Hampshire Democratic Party spokesman Wyatt Ronan in his comments provided to the Huffington Post later dismissed the GOP’s claims as “xenophobia that is developed by perpetuating some of these myths.”