New Hampshire Election Official Says He Was Threatened with Arrest for Hand-Counting Ballots
2 Video Views·Oct 29, 2026
John Cawthorne, a Ward 9 election moderator in Nashua, New Hampshire, says he was threatened with prosecution and arrest after attempting to conduct a supplemental hand count to verify voting machine results.
Cawthorne argues that election moderators have a responsibility to ensure votes are counted accurately - but claims state officials have stood in the way.
Why would an election official face possible arrest for double-checking the vote count?
AI GeneratedMay contain errors
So I became moderator. I heard of this practice
and I intended to institute this practice myself
because I can't communicate with whoever programs
the machines, nor can I be there
to look inside the machines,
to check the components of the machines and so forth. So
I was going to do this in 2024.
And then I was told in 2016, Secretary of State Scanlon
and the Attorney General threatened the Derry moderator
with committing a crime if she did the
I was going to do it anyways, but then I was,
my ward clerk called the attorney general on me
in November of 2024 and reported I intended
to do a supplemental hand count. And then I
got on the phone with, believe it or not,
Dick Tracy from the attorney general's office.
who threatened to prosecute and arrest myself
and my poll workers if we did this supplemental hand
count because he said that's a recount and it's illegal
and I told him that no it's not a recount
until I certify the election
because I'm the moderator it's just a count because I'm counting
sorting and counting the ballots anyways
so that's how I kind of got into this controversies because
as moderator it's my job to represent the voters
and the candidates of ward nine in Nashua
to make sure our elections are free and fair one person one vote
And I've been battling with the Secretary of State ever since.
I did meet with him in May of 2025,
along with Bill O'Brien, former Speaker of the House,
to lay out my concerns to him.
And he agreed that whoever programmed
the machines does control the elections,
but they're certain that their process
to prevent that is a good process in place,
which I disagree with him.
And I told him I intend to parallel hand,
supplemental hand count a race.
And he said that I didn't have the authority to do so.
I said, well, Part 2, Article 32
of the New Hampshire Constitution says that the moderator
governs the election, receives sorts
and counts of votes in the presence of the selectmen,
and announces the results thereof.
And I also cited the Supreme Court case,
which I believe is the opinion of the justices,
659-40, in which the Supreme Court affirmed
the moderator's authority to receive sorts
and counts of votes, and their opinion
was that if there's a problem with an election,
The best time and place to fix that is on election night
by the moderator in the presence
of the selectmen, not by the Secretary of State performing a recount.
So that's kind of a little bit of history
of what I've been doing as moderator and trying
to stand up for the rights of the voters and the candidates.
And I've been running into interference
from the powers that be in Concord pretty much
ever since I was elected.
Wow, that's crazy. But I mean, hearing you talk,
I think maybe a better fit for you would be Secretary of State.
Maybe we need to get Scanlon out of there and get you up at the top
because we need people that are actually knowledgeable
and going to hold the feet to the fire.