Also on today’s menu:
Haley’s Pitch To Franklin Voters
Fake Voter Suppression Message Under Investigation
Four Republicans and two independent voters showed up for the midnight presidential primary in Dixville early this morning, with all six casting ballots for Nikki Haley, the former United Nations Ambassador and governor of South Carolina. No vote went to either former president Donald J. Trump or current president Joe Biden Jr., the latter having chosen not to place his name on the New Hampshire ballot, even though he is running for re-election nationally.
The six votes represented the entire list of registered voters in the small North Country township. The balloting took place in the living room of the Tillotson House, with a portrait of the late resort owner, Neil Tillotson, hanging in the hallway. Tillotson initiated Dixville’s midnight voting tradition in 1960, joining Millsfield, which began the practice in 1936, and Hart’s Location, which followed suit in 1948. Those townships have abandoned the midnight voting practice. Ellsworth and Waterville Valley once experimented with a midnight vote, according to state records.
Paula Tracy noted that New Hampshire law requires that there be at least five voters to hold an election, which requires a moderator, clerk, and checklist supervisors. Dixville faced the prospect of having to combine with another community for voting in 2019, when its population had dropped to four people, but the tradition was saved when entrepreneur Les Otten, owner of The Balsams, agreed to move there in time for the election.
Commentary: Large political signs proclaiming “Trump 2024” and even “Trump/Pense 2020” abound in the North Country, so it is something of a surprise that no one in Dixville voted for the former president. However, six votes hardly predicts how New Hampshire’s primary election will turn out.
Haley’s Pitch To Franklin Voters
Nikki Haley appeared at the Franklin Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 1698 on January 22, telling voters that she is in the presidential race to prevent wars, to help people afford a house, to foster energy independence, to support veterans and the military, and to do more to stop illegal immigration than just building a wall.
She noted the average homebuyer in America is 49 years old and the “American dream is slipping away.” As she held her daughter’s situation up as an example of how difficult it is to own a home, her daughter, Rena Haley, and her husband, Joshua Jackson, joined her at the event.
Speaking of the former president’s efforts to discredit her candidacy, Haley said, “I have seen the mail you have been reading. And every single thing that Donald Trump has said or put on TV has been a lie. He says I want to cut Social Security and raise the retirement age. I never once said that. Not once. If anything we are going to make it solvent so no one lives in fear. He said that I don’t want to have a border wall. I never said that. I said you can’t just do a border wall, you’ve got to do all these other things that are going to stop what’s happening at the border. He says that I love war; quite the contrary, you don’t have a husband that’s in the military and love war [a reference to her husband, David, who is deployed overseas in the South Carolina National Guard]. You are obsessed with preventing war.”
New Hampshire Labor Commissioner Ken Merrifield, a former mayor of Franklin, and Governor Chris Sununu attended the event with Haley.
Commentary: Trump supporters’ campaign mailings cannot be taken seriously, but it is hard to believe anything that Nikki Haley says, either. Anyone choosing the Republican ballot would do a great service by giving Haley the vote as an anti-Trump statement in the primary, but, like Chris Christie, I believe she cannot win in the general election.
Fake Voter Suppression Message Under Investigation
The New Hampshire Attorney-General’s Office is seeking the source of a recorded message with an artificially generated voice that sounds like President Joe Biden Jr., encouraging voters not to vote in the New Hampshire Presidential Primary Election. The message, sent on January 21, stated, “your vote makes a difference in November, not this Tuesday.”
Attorney-General John Formella said it apparently was a “spoofed” message to make it appear that it came from the treasurer of a political committee that has been promoting the write-in campaign for Biden. It did so by directing recipients who wish to be removed from the robocalls to call the treasurer’s number.
“These messages appear to be an unlawful attempt to disrupt the New Hampshire Presidential Primary Election and to suppress New Hampshire voters,” Formella said. “New Hampshire voters should disregard the content of this message entirely. Voting in the New Hampshire Presidential Primary Election does not preclude a voter from additionally voting in the November General Election. Recipients of this message are additionally encouraged to send an e-mail to the Department of Justice Election Law Unit (electionlaw@doj.nh.gov) identifying (1) the date and time they received the call or message; (2) the origin of the call or message; (3) the content of the call or message; and (4) any other relevant information.
Discussion: Artificial intelligence and the ability to “spoof” phone numbers are making it increasingly difficult to know whether what we are seeing and hearing is genuine. It will only get worse as AI technology improves. The technology is useful for a number of tasks, but it makes it more important than ever to go to original sources for information, rather than acting on what is placed before you. In this case, checking with local and state officials can determine the veracity of the messages.