New Hampshire auditors say scanner malfunction could account for Windham vote discrepancies

 An auditor of the New Hampshire 2020 elections says scanners could have interpreted fold lines in some ballots as votes, which could "account for discrepancies" in election results.

Mark Lindeman, a part of the audit team investigating the results in the town of Windham, said scanners could interpret fold lines in the ballots as valid votes in some cases, according to The Epoch Times.

"Something we strongly suspect at this juncture, based on various evidence, is that in some cases, fold lines are being interpreted by the scanners as valid votes," Lindeman said.

Harri Hursti, another auditor, said: "Test decks proved that foldings across a vote targets is misinterpreted as additional phantom votes or subtracts votes due to false overvotes." 

The audit found that the four state Republican candidates in the election gained 300 votes, while Democratic candidates gained between 18 and 28 votes.

This audit in Windham, a town of about 14,000 people, centers on a legislative race. 

On election night, Republicans swept all four of Windham’s state representative seats. One Democrat, Kristi St. Laurent, fell short by just 24 votes and requested a recount. But during the recount, the margin between St. Laurent and the Republican candidates changed significantly. The outcome of the race didn’t change, but the change in vote totals raised questions among voters, according to a National Public Radio affiliate in the state.

Republican Gov. Chris Sununu signed a bill last month authorizing the election audit in Windham. However, the audit only investigated state representative seats, not the presidential election.