New Hampshire poll workers worried about security ahead of Election Day, ‘they call it toxic’

DERRY, NH – Election Day is just over a week away, and officials in New Hampshire are not only under added pressure to ensure a fair and safe process, they are also struggling to find people willing to to work as a poll worker.

“We run the test ballots through the machine, we have to run them through four times,” said Tina Guilford, Derry city clerk.

“We are here to do our job”

These are the kinds of protections they say are built into the electoral process. Sample ballot papers are inserted multiple times into eight machines; the numbers between the machines must match. The machine head will then remain sealed until Election Day, and Guilford said she feels more under control than ever before.

“We’re not here to play partisan politics, we’re here to do our job,” Guilford said.

Getting the job done wasn’t easy, and Guilford said it was even difficult to get poll workers to work on election night.

“A lot of people have told me that they’ve voted in elections in the past and they just don’t care about the environment because they think of it as toxic,” Guilford said.

Political tensions have been high since former President Donald Trump lost re-election in 2020, claiming the election was stolen. It breeds distrust of poll workers, and Guilford has felt it.

“I was called a communist, a fascist and not pleasant,” Guilford said. “They’re unhappy and they take it out on the person they can reach.”

Promise transparency

At Manchester City Hall on Friday, the queue was almost out the door as voters registered. The high level of interest in an election has also led to calls to elections director Thomas Hilton, who said he could only promise transparency.

“I understand where these people are coming from, that it’s their process,” Hilton said. “I think people are concerned, they want to know that their vote counts, as it should. So I totally respect that and I’m glad we can answer those questions for those people.”

Newly trained poll worker Jim Dietzel said he wanted to be part of the process.

“If I, as an ordinary citizen who is not an insider, can go out and tell the public that everything is really on the rise here, I think that gives people a lot of confidence,” Dietzel said.

There is no early voting in New Hampshire, only mail-in voting, so Election Day is expected to be particularly busy.