<p>I know of three first-time voters (current college freshmen) who registered as Democrats for the NH primary and were told when they went to vote that they were registered as Republicans. The student whom I know personally submitted a protest vote for Ron Paul, and then went back to her Town Hall to straighten out her registration, where she was told No, in fact, she WAS registered as a Democrat. </p>
<p>This is disturbing on so many fronts. First and foremost, what kind of message does it send to new voters about democracy in the good old USA to have their first-ever votes nullified in this way?</p>
<p>Second, there was so much scratching of the head by political pundits after the primary about how there could have been such a discrepancy between the projections based on opinion polls (with Obama as winner) and the final outcome (Clinton as winner). If three voters in one small NH town lost their opportunity to vote for their chosen candidate (NOT Hillary), then how many more such hijackings might there have been across the state? None of these oh-so-wise pundits has thought to look into the voting machinery to explain how things turned out counter to their predictions?</p>
<p>And if the voting in NH is messed up, imagine what it must be like in states that don’t have the voluminous press coverage that comes with being among the first in the nation.</p>
<p>I heard another story that comes third-hand and is therefore less reliable than the first ones, but having heard the first three, I am inclined to lend a more credulous ear than I otherwise might have: a woman in a neighboring town was seen submitting multiple ballots. When someone asked her what she was doing, she allegedly replied “I want my candidate to win.”</p>
<p>Something may be rotten in the state of New Hampshire.</p>