City of Portsmouth NH City Clerk Announces Use of Time-Saving Electronic Voter Check-in for Municipal Election

City of Portsmouth NH City Clerk Announces Use of Time-Saving Electronic Voter Check-in for Municipal Election

Portsmouth, New Hampshire – Portsmouth City Clerk Kelli Barnaby is pleased to announce that the City of Portsmouth will use electronic voter registration and check-in at Municipal Election polls on Election Day Tuesday, November 7, 2023.

New Hampshire State law RSA 652:27 authorizes the use of Electronic Poll Books, referred to as “poll pads.”

Voters arriving at each of the City’s Ward polling places on November 7 will provide their names and photo IDs as usual and then the poll worker will be able to quickly confirm the name and identity on the poll pad instead of having to use a paper voter list, as before. The voters will receive printed confirmations of their authorization to vote, which they provide to the poll worker distributing ballots. They then mark their ballots as instructed on the form. The paper list will be kept at each polling place in case it is needed, but the electronic check-in will speed up the process.

NH Secretary of State David Scanlan provided this advisory covering the Electronic Poll Books: “Cities and towns are hereby authorized to use electronic poll book devices for voter registration and check-in for elections, provided that any city or town using electronic poll book devices shall comply with all statutes directly or indirectly related to voter checklists and maintenance of the Statewide centralized voter registration database including the processes related to voter registration, voter check-in and check-out, the processing of absentee ballots, the collection of all fields of data required for registration or check-in, and the delivery of that data to the Secretary of State in a format compatible with the statewide centralized voter registration database. The provisions of RSA 654:34, RSA 659:55, RSA 659:13, RSA 659:14, and RSA 659:23, as they

relate to manual entries on a paper checklist, are hereby waived in order to accommodate an electronic poll book. Nonpublic voter data shall remain confidential, and no voter data shall be released or retained by an electronic poll book vendor, including its agents, or any company or individual that provides software, hardware, or services to the vendor for any purpose.”

For more information on voting, registration requirements, a sample ballot and other details, visit: portsnh.co/votinginfo.