New Hampshire Ballot Lottery Puts the “Other” Column in the Best Position

Posted on by October 5, 2024

New Hampshire is one of only five states that still has a party column ballot. Of those, it is the only one that rotates the columns so that every column has an equal chance to appear in the most prominent position, the left-hand side of the ballot.

The other party-column states put the two major parties in the most prominent position. Those states are Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, and Delaware.

This year the New Hampshire lottery for ballot position put the “other” column in the most prominent position.

One can easily criticize New Hampshire for not giving each party its own column. Instead, only the two largest parties gets their own column, and all others are placed in the “other” column. This misleads voters into thinking there is some sort of association between the various minor parties in that column. See this November 2024 ballot. To see any ballot, just choose any town at random. They all look alike. Thanks to Tony Roza for the link.

Comments

New Hampshire Ballot Lottery Puts the “Other” Column in the Best Position — 72 Comments

  1. One of the interesting things about New Hampshire is that some of the State Reps are chosen in multi member districts.

    To see what a ballot for a multi member district looks like, click on the ballot for Nashua, Ward 9.

  2. This is slightly misleading, since the order of columns isn’t the same across the state. For example, all 5 wards in Keene have the columns ordered R, O, D. Manchester Ward 1 has the columns O, R, D; Manchester Ward 5 is R, D, O.

  3. In past years, there were a number of Libertarians who got elected state rep in New Hampshire, usually as fusion candidates in multi member districts. New Hampshire has made it tougher to run as a fusion candidate, but they still have multi member districts.

  4. Terrible idea. Multimember districts are a way for politicians to evade responsibility.

  5. With 400 state representatives, drawing district lines in NH is tough; drawing single member districts would be impossible.

    NH also has floterial districts, which overlay several other districts. This is required in order to balance out each county’s allotment of representatives while keeping districts proportional (districts cannot cross county lines in NH).

  6. It would be very easily possible. Maine has about exactly the same population and over 400 towns, which don’t overlap .

  7. Chase Oliver is defending FEMA and supporting illegals, only to backtrack after being called out. What a fucking loser.

  8. “This misleads voters into thinking there is some sort of association between the various minor parties in that column”

    Does it really, though? The candidates are clearly labeled with their own party and in distinct cells for the same offices.

    I have nothing against giving each party its own column, though it might make for even more inconvenient ballot dimensions. But I feel like this might be looking for something to stumble over.

    But perhaps I am wrong – is there any evidence of people being confused?

  9. TOTAL VOTES / TOTAL MEMBERS [SHOULD BE ODD NUMBER] = EQUAL VOTES TO ELECT EACH MEMBER

    SURPLUS VOTES DOWN
    LOWEST LOSER VOTES UP

    >>> ALL VOTES COUNT

    BOTH INDIRECT MAJORITY RULE AND MINORITY REPRESENTATION

  10. https://electionlawblog.org/?p=146071

    PA DATE ON ABS BALLOTS

    CERTAIN CHAOS IN PA – AFTER E DAY

    SCOTUS ACTION AFTER IDIOT PA SCT ACTS AFTER E DAY ???

    PURCELL – FATAL TO SURVIVAL OF USA ???

    LIKE FATAL 1857 DRED SCOTT JUNK ???
    —-
    FOR NON-TROLL MORONS AND MORON JUDGES – ESP ON PA SCT —

    ABS BALLOTS = SUBSTITUTE FOR IN PERSON VOTING ON E DAYS — NOT AFTER E DAYS.

  11. @Walter
    It’s bloc voting. Do you support that?

    @Constituent Services
    In multimember districts, a rep can take credit for the good work of his peers, and share credit for his bad work, is that what you’re saying?

    Do competing grocery companies do that? They both do business in your town. Why can’t I have competing representatives from different parties?

  14. Dump whoever – who is chase and if someone for some reason cares (why should they) where did he say and or retract whatever you claim? I.don’t know or care or know any read on I should. I followed a link from a search about ballot a representative for NH. If you are going to chime in please provide context instead of ass-using everyone reading already knows wtf you are talking about or why.

    I mean we have 400 reps in multimember districts, which district is Chase? Chase who? What town are you from etc

  15. Nuña – que pason Amiga? Viva aqui en NH? YO vivo y trabajo en Portsmouth y tambien estudiente en UNH en Durham.

    I think you are giving people a lot more credit than the average person can be reasonably respected. Many of us are busy with other things besides politics and have dyslexia or other learning challenges. Or speak ESL. OR Several of these etc.

    I work hard and. Go to college now and raise family. My iq is 88. Very average person been thru a lit in my life and 38 year old college student finally after dropping out 8th grade repeated 3x dropped out 16 got GED 2 YEARS AGO and I have had many jobs in life, was in jail, Army, kids exes etc. English first but a lit of family is Latino even though my Spanish is as you can see even worse than my English.

    Worked very hard to get to college with learning disability! Stupid ballots and gov forms are confusing! I work with my hands and back not office punk!

  16. AZ – stop yelling bro and what are you even talking about for real tho???

  18. Mr Cerini

    Yes sir that is what I’m saying but mostly the evade responsibility part. The biggest problem though is not even the bad work but the no work. Things dropped thru the cracks that needed to be taken care of but were not for constituents services.

    There is a difference with grocery stores and politicians. When u work for our in a store or private business you have to answer to a boss day to day or if ur the boss you have employees to do tasks and hire fire hive training incentives etc.

    Or even one man business you have to answer to customers day to day or loose accounts and you see the feedback every day, not just complaints but sales totals , inline comments, employee feedback, customer feedback, bottom line by product category etc etc – immediate feedback immediate results and possibility of raise promotion or lose job etc every single day. Or business grow shut down etc.

    What about politicians? It is different.

    They only get an evaluation once every 2 years or 4 years. Either lose the job or not. In NH it’s not really a job it’s just $100 for the whole thing and some expenses so they have other actual jobs or retired or whatever. But in places where it is their actual job .
    .what about there.

    Well the fact is the incentives are wack. Either fired or hired once ever 2 or 4 years also and then ignored whether the job is done right except by rich donors, lobbyist for special interest , a few weirdos etc , most people don’t pay attention to mist politicians even at election time much less in between.

    Who makes sure the trash gets picked up, roads fixed, dope dealers and whores and pimps off the street where kids play, traffic lights work, your kid gets that letter to service academy or college etc, and a thousand other things politicians at different levels are suppose to take care of?

    So essay for those tasks to be undone even when we know exactly who to blame if they’re not. Much worse when it’s 18 people for 8 offices or whatever. Whose job was it? All 8 incumbents? You see it gets complicated and messy fast.

  19. George don’t waste your money homie. All my homies do but not me. In gambling the house always wins and long term you always lose more than you win. Worse house take if govt is the house.

    Meaning bro lottery is a tax on being stupid. Not hating bro but it took me 4ever to figure it out homie but I finally did! Not calling any body dumb I was dumb about that til age 35 I’m 38 now with 88 iq!!! So no diss but take my word bro I wasted money gambling all my life including lottery and JUST SAY NO TO GSMBLIMG but lottery most especially!!!

  20. AZ is a bot programmed to spew the insane ideas of the late Thomas W Jones. It’s the opposite of AI.

  22. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2024/10/06/red-states-redder-blue-bluer-politics-sorting/75374267007/

    Red states are redder. Blue states are bluer. And our politics? Hotter.

    ***
    The hardening of the country’s political lines has contributed to other consequences, too, including one-party control of the governorship and state legislature in 40 of the 50 states.
    ***
    —–
    CIVIL WARS COMING IN HOW MANY STATES ??? ALL 50 ???
    —-
    HOW MANY STATES HAVE ELECTED OMSBUDSPERSONS — TO DEAL WITH THE LEG-EXEC-JUDIC HACKS IN ALL GOVTS IN THE STATES ???

  23. AZZ – I GUESS probably in Manchester ?? Look it up if you really care. But that’s my point. Making it complicated sucks.

    Reprogram – that makes sense in a weird way. AI is coming along crazy fast. Sorry I’m slow. Good looking out homie!

  24. AZZ BIT IF U NOT BOT DON’T HAVE A COW MAN LOL

  28. Ok bot confirmed. What Saudi has to do with NH REPS LOL

  29. Dale for real for real! Sorry I’m a slow learner bro but I do learn eventually bare with me yo

  30. Adam Cerini what is blocked voting? I know u weren’t talking to me tho just curious

  31. Dump we need FEMA but get illegal’s OUT report and deport 100%!! Much love for Latinos including 80% of my fam but come on legal thru the front door not break or sneak in illegal thru the back like a thief and then u got terrorist Nigeria’s jihadist and crap ! And China! Hell to the no@!@! Get em out while we still can homie!!!

  32. Oh I forgot we do need FEMA THO FIR REAL REAL, that’s a federal matter anyway not NH but bro u ever been thru a major natural disaster like hurricane blizzard etc ????

  34. Mr Cerini

    On further reflection another answer overlaps my previous Sir.

    There is no district or store limit for stores in my town

    I don’t have to buy everything at the same store

    I don’t have to shop in my town

    I can decide how much or how often I really need how much of this or that

    I can get delivery or go to the store or grow some things if I got a back yard or even inside likely hydroponics or other methods , raise cool chickens that may eggs etc , if I move out of time have my own dairy cow and slaughtered farm animals or hunt and fish not just commercial fish like I use to on s boat

    I can go to food pantry and food bank and

    Try to open up a store or go to garner market

    Fsrmer

    Or if I got paid to eat out or get pizza or whatever delivered

    Or work on a restaurant get food on the kitchen the about to throw out

    Or barter work for good food

    Get fed if I’m bumming or institutional or at a friend’s homies or la familiar

    U see it’s not just X grocery stores per town there’s gas convenience marts, box stores etc etc etc

    But not the same with politicos districts and political choices are shared by all the voters of a district not individual choices marvel moment 2 moment day 2 day like getting some grub Sir. .

    I can’t just go to the cafeteria or mess instead etc etc

  37. Why don’t Whites do that with Trump next month? ” SI SE PUEDE” OR IN WHITE — HECK YES WE CAN !!!!!

  38. Darn tootin! I was going to Kamala with my female dawg LIZ CHENEY but then I thought the Kamalot Whore is not even 50% Wonder Bread and Trump is 100% pure Home Sliced White Bred and the best thing any way you slice it! Word to your mother, vanilla ICE! TRUMP TRUMP BABY…

    WHITE POWER Y’ALL!!!

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VAieByvBlTA

  39. ICE ICE BABY
    REPORT REPORT
    IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS CONTROL
    DEPORT DEPORT

    !!!!!!

  41. Adam C posted:

    “@Walter
    It’s bloc voting. Do you support that?”

    How so? As you can see on the ballot, the voters for individuals in every case. They don’t have to be from the same party.

  43. @Walter
    Block (or Bloc) Voting doesn’t mean the candidates are voted on as a slate; but rather that the largest voting block (not necessaily a political party) is able to elect their preferred candidates.
    The opposite of block voting in a multi-member district is proportional representation.

  44. Making voting, vote counting and the voter-represented to representatives relationship even more complicated is always invariably a bad idea.

  45. “Making voting, vote counting and the voter-represented to representatives relationship even more complicated is always invariably a bad idea.”

    On the contrary, it supports Madison in Federalist #10, who points out that distributing power as much as possible preserves liberty by preventing any person, faction or party getting total power. It strengthens checks and balances – what some folks mistakenly call “gridlock.”

  46. In fact, we have already built in “complicated” voting and representation into our original Constitution, with direct election of Representatives, election of Senators by states, and indirection of the President thru the Electoral College, all for the purpose of distributing power according to Madisonian principles.

  47. Madison was not impermeable to error. Unfortunately history has shown that while his intention was good the outweighing factors he didn’t consider ocercomplicated and ocercompensated. There are much better ways to distribute power – OUTSIDE of government.

  48. And @ second part

    Yes. But they made key errors which are compounded at an increasing rate phase over a quarter millennium and building on each other exponentially like an unstable house of cards or Jenga … The Max – Vera (my ex) – Stan plan is designed to assess and address those by going to the starting point and moving in the opposite direction along each of those axes

  49. WZ-

    PERVERSION OF USA CONST VIA SCOTUS HACKS CHOSEN BY PARTISAN HACK PREZS / PARTISAN HACK USA SENATORS —
    ESP 1-8-1 GENL WELFARE CL
    1-8-3 INTERSTATE COMM CL
    3-2-1 ADM/MARITIME — OVER STATE RIVERS/LAKES
    3-2-1 STATE CORPS AS STATE CITIZENS
    —
    ALL MINORITY RULE GERRYMANDER SYSTEMS —
    USA
    H REPS
    SENATE
    PREZ/VP
    —
    ALL STATES – 99 HOUSES IN 50 STATE LEGIS
    MOST LOCAL GOVTS
    —
    ALL TENDING TO LAWLESS TYRANT TOP EXECS — PREZS / GUVS / MAYORS
    —–
    PR
    APPV
    TOTSOP

  50. I looked at several sample ballots but the Other candidates are on the right side of the ballot, not the left side. Please explain.

  53. Madison’s genius has allowed America to keep more freedom longer than many other places. It’s failing now primarily because people don’t appreciate what he accomplished.

    If there is any country doing a better job than America of preserving constitutional freedom, it is probably Switzerland. Having the usual checks and balances of the US Constitution in their system, there is one added feature that has worked extremely well for them: a joint executive. Instead of having a sole President, they elect a seven member executive council, who rotate the title of President every year. They have thus been able to control one of the greatest weaknesses of constitutional systems everywhere: the tendency to centralize power in the executive.

  54. @George Whitfield

    Which towns/city wards did you check?

    I randomly picked the ballot for Bartlett, and it has from left to right Other, Democrat, Republican, Write-in.

    But after your comment, I decided to check out several others. And indeed it appears that the order of the first three columns is not the same on different ballots. Only the write-in column seems to always be last.

  55. It started falling apart from the beginning and has accelerated as the voting population expanded even faster than the human population, among many other things. Trying to reverse those compounding errors is the goal.

    A genius lock and dam system might keep New Orleans from flooding longer than a less genius system, but it will flood again eventually. Yes, we want to keep that further in the future if we can, as well as less severe. But the mean probability of a million years time frame is far better than 250, if we have means to do it, even if 248 is the best world record to date.

    The difference with this analogy is that in our real world, loss of freedom is gradual and ebbs and tides along multiple or indefinite numbered axes (axises? Axi? Onsetting senility here…)

    Madison was a genius, yes. He was also profoundly wrong about that particular point. The fact that his system held the wolves at bay longer than others doesn’t mean that it can’t or shouldn’t be improved on, even in profound ways that go all the way back to the foundation to see what went wrong and why and correct those things in an opposite direction.

  56. Switzerland has a number of other differences with the U.S. Greater canton independence is an important one. Divided executive power is a decent idea, but ocercomplicating the system is not.

  57. I wouldn’t idolize the contemporary Swiss system too much. A lot of that canton independence has been undermined down the centuries, and exponentially in recent decades, until now the cantons are largely forced to be in lock-step with the federal government

  58. True. All these things are short of perfect obviously. We’re talking about relative degrees of better and worse in various ways all over the world.

  60. What I intended to convey is that the Swiss cantons today have less independence relative to US states.

    They used to have more, but those days are gone – for now at least, since Switzerland and the US seem locked into a race to the bottom.

    Switzerland went from being worse (by which I mean more centralized) in the late 18th-early 19th century, to being better, to now being worse again.

  61. The Swiss are still FAR better than the US in curbing executive power. There is no personality cult around the President of Switzerland. In fact, there are few people outside of Switzerland who can even name ONE person who has been President of Switzerland.

  62. There are cultural differences too. Switzerland is pretty unique but does anyone here know of anything culturally closer than Austria? Maybe something much smaller like Luxembourg in some ways? A lot of what’s still good about Switzerland is now going down the tubes too because the forces of evil are at last prevailing on things like immigration, women voting, European integration etc etc.

    Perhaps they’ll finally lead the way and ban Islam, but I’m probably too optimistic. Their banking privacy is going down the tubes , maybe completely gone by now. The unique system of community, canton and federal defense .. Only a matter of time now probably with the dark polluted waves washing in.

  64. What about 1291? Swiss traditions came together over a period of time and Wikipedia is a joke site run by pedo leftards.

  65. @Nuna The only town I positively remember checking was Exeter, because it is one of the few places in New Hampshire I have been fortunate enough to visit. The other ones I don’t recall. I checked Bartlett and it had “Other” in the left column. There seems to be some other factor affecting the placement but I don’t know what it is.

  66. It’s interesting to note that, in the past, some folks would refer to New Hampshire as the “Switzerland of America.”

  67. @Walter Ziobro

    “The Swiss are still FAR better than the US in curbing executive power.”

    ??? What? No? Not at all.

    “There is no personality cult around the President of Switzerland.”

    Ah, that’s what you mean by curbing executive power. OK yes, Switzerland concentrates less power in one single person, the president, but far more in the executive branch and in the federal government as a whole, notably including in all its unelected bureaucrats.

    “In fact, there are few people outside of Switzerland who can even name ONE person who has been President of Switzerland.”

    That is partly indeed because the individual president does not wield as much power with as much (in)discretion, but also partly because Switzerland frankly is not nearly as important outside of its own borders as the US (or most other countries these days).

    ———

    @Standing Count Stan

    “Switzerland is pretty unique but does anyone here know of anything culturally closer than Austria?”

    Nope. The Tyrol region (which is partly in Austria and partly in northern Italy) is the closest I can think of.

    “Perhaps they’ll finally lead the way and ban Islam”

    I see Austria doing that before Switzerland at this point.

    “Their banking privacy is going down the tubes , maybe completely gone by now.”

    It’s gone. Has been since they started complying with EU directives in the early 2000s.

    Today, contrary to popular belief, Switzerland is a relatively bad place to store your wealth or data centers, etc., because it is not really safer than in any EU country, but now it has a target painted on it.

    And “Swiss neutrality” was always overstated (e.g. shooting down French bombers during WWI to protect German factories producing poison gas, or handing escaped Jews and POWs back to the nazis during WWII).

    ———

    @George Whitfield

    “There seems to be some other factor affecting the placement but I don’t know what it is.”

    My guess (without any basis) would be that the ballot lottery takes place on the town/city ward level.

  68. In New Hampshire, the column order randomly varies by state senate district.

    There are 6 permutations of 3 parties: DOR, DRO, ODR, ORD, RDO, and ROD

    NH has 24 senate districts, so each permutation is used in 4 districts (i.e., 24/6 = 4)

    It does not appear to be any sort of rotation. For example, ORD is used in senate districts 6, 13, 16, and 17

    The requirement for ballot rotations is described in statute NH RSA 656:5 .

    There is not a strict requirement that there are only three columns, but the statute permits the SOS to place candidates from multiple parties in a shared column if they don’t have a complete slate. The practice of three columns may have evolved from when there were two parties and a scattering of independent candidates.

    Ironically, there does not appear to be a primacy effect related to the party ballot order in New Hampshire.

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7963059/

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7963059/

  69. “Switzerland concentrates less power in one single person, the president, but far more in the executive branch and in the federal government as a whole, notably including in all its unelected bureaucrats”

    It ALSO means that ALL major parties end up with at least one member of the executive council, so that, in effect, Switzerland always has a national unity government (as opposed to a coalition government with only one or two key parties). In a national unity government, all significant security and economic information is shared among the parties, no one is in the dark, and consensus building is required for all major decisions.

  70. The only time the US had a true national unity government was under George Washington, when all significant leaders of every major party were included: Adams, Jefferson, Hamilton and Franklin. YES, there were disagreements, but everyone had a say and made positive contributions to the progress of the new Constitution.

  71. And, what you may think about Hamilton’s National Bank scheme, he DID believe in hard money, not fiat currency.

  72. New Hampshire assigns a different column order to each state senate district. With 3 columns: R, D, and O, there are 6 permutations:

    DOR, DRO, ODR, ORD, RDO, and ROD. There are 24 senate districts, so each order is assigned to 4 districts (24/6 = 4). The assignment is random, so for example ORD is used in districts 6, 13, 16, 7.

    Statute does not require 3 columns, but permits parties to be placed in the same column if they don’t have a complete slate. 3 columns may be traditional based on having a D column, and R column, and a column for a scattering of independents.

    Ironically, the column order does not appear to have an effect on voting. This article contrasts the effect of New Hampshire’s column order with the candidate order used in other States.

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7963059/

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