New Hampshire Secretary of State Dave Scanlan says he aims over the next two years to put “the finishing touches” on programs he and his team have been implementing the past couple of years.

“We spent the last two years doing a lot of work with the electronic databases and technology bringing them up to where they need to be… a lot of that heavy lifting has been done,” Scanlan said this week after he faced no opposition and was re-elected to a second straight two-year term as New Hampshire’s top election official.

Nearly three years ago Scanlan succeeded legendary Secretary of State Bill Gardner – who retired after serving in the position for nearly a half-century.

“We’re geared up now to get new ballot counting devices into the polling places,” Scanlan said, adding that the state will “transition over the next two years to the newer devices.”

The upgrading of polling equipment may help alleviate the long lines some of the larger communities dealt with last month on Election Day. Asked about complaints over the wait times from some lawmakers, Scanlan said that the long lines often mean “you’re having an incredible turnout for an election.”

“There were some large polling places where there were lines, but the lines were moving, and the operations inside were efficient,” Scanlan said. 

But the Secretary of State acknowledged that improvements can be made, especially where wait times were more than an hour for some voters to calls their ballots. 

“There were lines in New Hampshire longer than they should be and we will be working with the individual towns where those situations occurred to help up with solutions to those problems,” Scanlan said.

Scanlan emphasized outreach efforts by his office to specific populations, including veterans, minority groups, and students. “We have started some programs that are really going to evolve nicely over the next two years,” he said.

He said the mission of these efforts is to “try to get the public to reengage in civic activities and one of those is working as poll workers, helping to run an election… in doing so I think we help educate the public on how elections are run.”

While Scanlan sailed to reelection, he faced criticism from the progressive advocacy group 603 Forward.

In an email headlined “Anti-Voter Scanlan Elected to Second Full Term as New Hampshire Secretary of State,” the organization argued that Scanlan’s support for what it called “two of the most restrictive voter registration changes New Hampshire has ever seen” has resulted in the state “now having the most restrictive and costly voter registration systems in the country.”

Scanlan described 603 Forward as a “special interest dark money group.”

“They are quick to criticize everything that my department has done,”he said. “They’re not a fan of the office and they simply never will be.”

He argued that “in New Hampshire, we’ve done a lot to make voting easy,” but “we have those insurances in place that people that are voting are actually qualified to vote.There needs to be a balance there and I am working to achieve that balance.”

Confidence in election results requires transparency.

“We want 100% of the voters who are qualified to participate but they should be prepared to show that they are in fact qualified,” Scanlan said.

A key part of the Secretary of State’s job description is protecting the state’s century-old first-in-the-nation presidential primary status.

While the Republican National Committee kept to tradition in the 2024 election cycle, Scanlan was put to the test by the Democratic National Committee, which in early 2023 upended its presidential primary calendar, demoting New Hampshire to the second spot in the order, along with Nevada.

Scanlan, adhering to a nearly half-century-old law that mandates that New Hampshire hold the first presidential primary, a week ahead of any similar contest, scheduled the contest for Jan. 23, with the Democratic presidential primary ending up being an unsanctioned election.

Looking ahead to 2028, Scanlan pledged that he will “absolutely” once again protect New Hampshire’s primary status.

And pointing to a White House race without an incumbent president seeking re-election, he predicted that “there will be candidates lining up on both sides wanting to take a shot at it and New Hampshire is the place where they can get a leg up if they do well. ... I would fully expect the candidates will be in New Hampshire early testing their message and making the appropriate contacts.

“New Hampshire is probably the last remaining place where the average person who has that dream to become president can go campaign and actually try to make it happen,” he said.

Primary calendar battle

The Democratic National Committee won’t officially decide on the 2028 presidential primary calendar for another two years, but that’s not stopping Nevada’s Democratic Party chair from putting in a plug for her state.

“Nevada is the battleground state that best reflects our growing nation and the Democratic Party cannot afford to let overwhelmingly college-educated, white, or less competitive states start the process of winnowing the field again in 2028. This will be one of the DNC’s primary responsibilities over the next two years, and it’s crucial that we set an early window and primary calendar that puts us in the best position to win back the White House,” chair Daniele Monroe-Moreno argued in a statement this week.

Asked about her comments, longtime New Hampshire Democratic Party chair Ray Buckley noted that in the four times Nevada was in the third spot in the party’s presidential nominating calendar, “Democrats won more votes than Republicans.”

Buckley said after Nevada “stirred the pot” and lobbied to move its state up in the calendar this past cycle, the Democrats lost the national popular vote this year.

In fact, New Hampshire was the only one of the early voting states in the Democrats’ 2024 primary calendar that Vice President Kamala Harris carried last month.