{"id":9972,"date":"2024-01-19T17:42:26","date_gmt":"2024-01-19T17:42:26","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","slug":"How-towns-prepare-or-the-election-53760719\/","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/?p=9972","title":{"rendered":"Towns preparing for strong voter turnout on\u00a0election day"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Bow<\/a>
Bow town moderator Peter F. Imse and selectman Eric Anderson at the voting at Bow Memorial School on Tuesday, March 14, 2017.<\/figcaption><\/figure>

With New Hampshire Secretary of State David Scanlan predicting a statewide voter turnout of 873,357 for Tuesday\u2019s presidential primary, former Bow select board member Eric Anderson is nervous the number of ballots provided to the town may be insufficient.<\/p>\n

Anderson has been tracking Bow voter turnout since 1990.<\/p>\n

Bow has received 1,400 ballots each for Democrats and Republicans from the state. In 2016, nearly 1,766\u00a0ballots were cast in Bow during the Democratic primary between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders (who won with 51% of the votes).<\/p>\n

\u201cFor the Democrat ballots, that\u2019s probably enough. But for the Republican ballots, I\u2019m not sure. We might need a couple more. I just think there\u2019s going to be a lot of interest in that particular race,\u201d said Anderson.<\/p>\n

For Peter Imse, who has served as a moderator in Bow for 26 years, preparations for the big day start at least a month in advance.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a voter, everything\u2019s fine, you vote, you leave and it looks like it\u2019s a piece of cake. But there is so much that goes on behind the scenes,\u201d said Imse.<\/p>\n

It starts with\u00a0an email blast from Imse to recruit volunteers for election day. At the same time, he reaches out to town officials to gather information about expectations and potential issues to anticipate at the Bow Community Center on Tuesday, where voting will take place.<\/p>\n

The groundwork for election day continues with engaging with the police to ensure they are well-equipped to handle any traffic issues and to ensure the town is prepared in case of fires or other public safety concerns. Even seemingly mundane details, such as ensuring that lunch and dinner are available for poll workers so they do not go hungry, are meticulously arranged.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the good things when you\u2019ve done things for a few years is you work out the kinks,\u201d said Imse.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the same well-oiled process\u00a0in towns and cities all across New Hampshire.<\/p>\n

This year, Bow has seen a slight increase in the number of volunteers, with nearly 40 individuals stepping up. Imse thinks it\u2019s\u00a0due to the\u00a0anticipation of a significant turnout from the Democratic side, driven by a push for write-in votes.<\/p>\n

Hopkinton too has staffed more volunteers for ballot counting in anticipation of a higher-than-average number of write-in votes.<\/p>\n

While Bow\u2019s booth setup begins on Monday afternoon, Hopkinton has a much tighter schedule. Their setup begins Monday evening, ensuring that the polling center, located at the high school gymnasium, doesn\u2019t disrupt the students\u2019 activities more than necessary.<\/p>\n

Sarah Persechino, Hopkinton\u2019s moderator, said her four years as a moderator had made her feel more at ease when setting up for elections.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m feeling excited about it. We\u2019ve got a really good crew working on it,\u201d said Persechino. \u201cEveryone in Hopkinton is very committed to making sure that people can cast their ballot easily and efficiently.\u201d<\/p>\n

With all of the work that goes into preparing for elections, polling places always turn into a space for community interaction.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost of the time people are talking to their neighbors, which is great. It\u2019s always fun to have that little bit of interaction with your neighbors,\u201d said Persechino. \u201cWe have had to remind people in the last couple of years that while we\u2019re very excited to see your friends, neighbors, family, some of them are working as ballot clerks.\u201d<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With New Hampshire Secretary of State David Scanlan predicting a statewide voter turnout of 873,357 for Tuesday\u2019s presidential primary, former Bow select board member Eric Anderson is nervous the number of ballots provided to the town may be…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":553,"featured_media":9973,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":false,"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","_newspack_byline_active":true,"_newspack_byline":"by [Author id=553]Sruthi Gopalakrishnan[\/Author] Monitor staff","newspack_content_restriction_is_exempt":false,"newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,508],"tags":[61,24,189,505,25],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[506],"class_list":["post-9972","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","category-top-headlines-cm","tag-bow-nh","tag-facebook","tag-hopkinton-nh","tag-paywall","tag-primary-2024","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/42734425-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9972","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/553"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9972"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9972\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9974,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9972\/revisions\/9974"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9972"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fnewspack_spnsrs_tax&post=9972"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=9972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}