To the Editor,

I am writing in response to your article about the November 21st Portsmouth hand recount that resulted in a win for John Hynes. The article states that the hand recount was "a long, expensive and labor-intensive process for the city, but well worth the effort." Currently roughly 45% of New Hampshire towns continue to count their ballots by hand for every election. This method of vote counting is not any more expensive than running machines, which currently cost around $1100 per machine per election to run. Moreover, the cost of using electronic voting equipment will increase due to the volatility of the industry both technologically and because of a nationwide rise in litigation over the questionable security of these systems.

In New Hampshire's hand count communities, the labor intensiveness of the vote count is offset by a sense of community and civility. Citizens come together for an observable vote count, as mandated by the US Constitution. When the count is concluded, community members look each other in the eye and accept the outcome as a valid reflection of the people's wishes for representation.

Our NH vote counting machines (primarily manufactured and serviced by Diebold Election Systems) continue to be vulnerable to security risks as software development makes hacks into our vote counting technology more and more likely. Concerned citizens should also understand that these machines, while publicly owned, are programmed by a private vendor (LHS Associates) using proprietary software that is not open to public inspection.

Finally, we may feel secure in our ability to conduct paper ballot recounts, but the accessibility of recounts has already been challenged in our state in the form of House Bill 365. This pending legislation, if passed as is, will make the cost of statewide recounts prohibitive in many cases. The accessibility of recounts will continue to be challenged; this is a national trend in all state legislatures around the country.

We know that election outcomes can and have been changed because of a manual recount. Maybe it is time to return to hand counts everywhere unless and until the security of electronic voting machines can be guaranteed in such as way that the count is observable, as mandated by our US Constitution. In New Hampshire we know that we can create the proper conditions to make hand counts a feasible choice for our democratic election process.