CACR31 Relating to ballot reconciliation. Providing that the state adopt certain provisions and penalties relative to the ballot reconciliation process.
Relating to ballot reconciliation. Providing that the state adopt certain provisions and penalties relative to the ballot reconciliation process.
Impact Score — How Does This Bill Affect You?
Overall Impact Score
Harmful
Scale: 1 (harmful) to 10 (beneficial)
Your Wallet
Municipalities face significant new costs for 24-hour surveillance systems, ballot storage facilities, hand-counting infrastructure, staff training, and increased record-keeping, with no identified state funding mechanism.
Your Community
Smaller towns may struggle to meet new polling location limits (5,000 voters max) and hand-counting requirements, potentially reducing voting accessibility and straining local election administration capacity.
Your Freedom
Enhanced voter ballot receipt and public ballot viewing rights provide some transparency benefit, but the constitutional embedding of specific operational procedures removes municipal discretion in election administration.
Status
Inexpedient to Legislate: Motion Adopted Voice Vote 03/05/2026 House Journal 6 P. 13
Sponsor
Matt Sabourin (R)
The Short Version
This constitutional amendment would require hand-counting all ballots, assign serial numbers to every ballot, limit polling locations to 5,000 voters each, centralize ballot printing through the Secretary of State, require 24-hour surveillance of ballot storage, and mandate 60-month ballot retention with public access. It would substantially increase election administration costs and complexity while creating new operational burdens for municipalities.
Who's Behind This Bill?
Who Benefits
- ▲ Voters seeking physical proof of their ballot through serial-numbered perforated tabs
- ▲ Registered voters granted appointment-based access to view original ballots during 60-month retention period
- ▲ Citizens able to request random municipal audits with recording permissions
Who Pays the Price
- ▼ Municipal governments facing mandated costs for ballot storage surveillance, facilities, and infrastructure without identified state funding
- ▼ Small towns with fewer than 5,000 registered voters that may need to create additional polling locations or consolidate elections
- ▼ Election officials required to attend annual training and manage complex new chain-of-custody and documentation procedures
- ▼ Taxpayers funding increased election administration expenses at local level
Bill statuses as of October 7, 2026. Check LegiScan or NH General Court for the latest.
This bill was auto-scored using AI analysis of the bill text and legislative data. Scores may be refined as we review more bills.