Town Elections

Concord, NH – Governor Chris Sununu's public remarks following a phone call with local officials this afternoon:

Thank you everybody. I just got off the phone with folks from the municipalities all across the state. We talked about the aspects of the storm tomorrow, and how they'll potentially impact town elections in town meetings tomorrow. Its our understanding that a lot of towns have already made a choice to cancel their town votes tomorrow – not cancel, but postpone, I should say, their elections. There is some differing opinion on the state level as to the wherewithal, whether that is a valid process for them to take. Given that there are differing opinions, the best we can do is strongly recommend that all towns stay open for voting tomorrow. We think that's a very important part of the process, but given those differing opinions, I don't think were in a position to mandate that towns stay open or reverse their direction if they so choose not to, but we do strongly recommend that they do stay open. If towns do choose, and make that choice on their own, at their risk, frankly, to make a decision to postpone their voting. We got on the phone and wanted to make them aware of some recommendations that we had, such as ensuring that someone was at least available either at the polling places or town offices with absentee ballots so folks coming in to vote could at least obtain an absentee ballot, if they were not going to be available for the rescheduled voting day. We strongly encourage towns to coordinate with other towns that may be in their cooperative school district, as we understand that a lot of towns are voting together about school district issues, it would create a lot of confusion if some towns are voting on school issues and some towns are not. And then you get into an issue of do you release the results and how that's processed. Again, all these things that really play into our advice that towns stay open and keep their voting open through tomorrow. That being said, there will be very difficult road conditions and people need to take precautions and be safe, plan their days accordingly and participate in the process. So, again, we wanted to make sure people understood that we are dealing with the issue at the state level.