STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Today in New Hampshire, town meetings are being hosted in communities around the state. Voters will weigh in on things like school boards and budgets and voting. Some will decide if ballots should be counted by machine or by hand in future elections. As New Hampshire Public Radio's Todd Bookman reports, this stems from false claims about the 2020 election.
TODD BOOKMAN, BYLINE: Just before each election, ballot counting machines get pulled out of town hall basements and closets across New Hampshire. They're dusted off and given a test run.
CHRIS JACOBS: Yes, we're going to test that machine right now, right here.
BOOKMAN: Chris Jacobs is an election official in Milton - population around 4,400. The machine, called the AccuVote, kind of looks like a big paper shredder. Its technology dates back to the 1980s. There's no internet connection. One by one, Jacobs feeds in sample ballots.
(SOUNDBITE OF MACHINE WHIRRING)
BOOKMAN: This year, there are more than 30 questions on the ballot in Milton - from the budget to a race for fire chief to what kind of street lightbulbs the town should use. But there's also a question about the ballots themselves. Milton is one of at least a dozen towns in New Hampshire where activists gathered enough signatures to get a question before voters. They're asking them to ban the use of the AccuVote counting machines. Even in this relatively small town, Jacobs says it would take hours and hours to count each ballot by hand on...
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