The information contained in this article is not intended as legal advice and may no longer be accurate due to changes in the law. Consult NHMA's legal services or your municipal attorney.
During town meeting season in 2025, there was a push by small groups of voters in some New Hampshire towns to adopt the partisan ballot system for town elections. It appears likely that these efforts will be renewed with vigor in 2026.
This is not a small change; adopting this system is not merely a matter of allowing candidates to put an “R” or “D” after their names on the ballot. Rather, it would allow party caucuses to choose candidates for local elections, and it would put serious pressure on candidates to run on a party “ticket,” whether they want to or not. It would work a tectonic shift in local government and the manner in which town officials work together.
This article explains the process and the consequences of the partisan ballot system.
Some background. Most (but not quite all) New Hampshire towns use the “official ballot” to elect local officials. (Cities must use the official ballot.) The official ballot is the ballot we are all familiar with—a preprinted form that lists the candidates for each office, with boxes or ovals for voters to mark their choices. This is in contrast to the “unofficial ballot” that was widely used from the mid-1800s into the 1900s (and is still an option today), which consists of blank slips of paper on which voters write their choices during the town meeting. (There was no separate “election day”—elections by unofficial ballot were held during the business session of the town meeting. And prior to 1842, there wasn’t even an “unofficial” ballot—officials were elected by voice vote during the meeting.)
Cities and towns that use the official ballot have a choice of using either a partisan or a non-partisan official ballot. As the words suggest, with the partisan official ballot system, candidates are listed on the ballot by political party; with the non-partisan official ballot system, candidates are listed without party designation.
How many municipalities use a partisan ballot system? There are 234 towns and cities in New Hampshire. Of those, the number that use the partisan ballot system is exactly zero. Perhaps there is a reason for that.
Note: Because of media reporting, many people are under the impression that Manchester, the state’s largest city, has a partisan election system. It does not. Manchester’s city charter expressly states that the mayor and other officials are elected on a non-partisan basis. The city has a non-partisan primary, and the two candidates who receive the most votes for each position (or four candidates for certain positions) are selected to appear on the general election ballot. While this usually results in one Republican and one Democrat running for mayor and other positions, that is not automatic, and the candidates’ parties are not indicated anywhere on the general election ballot. It is a strictly non-partisan system. Neither Manchester nor any other city or town in New Hampshire currently uses the partisan ballot system.
Choosing the partisan ballot system. Under RSA 669:12, for a town to adopt the partisan ballot system, an article must be placed on the town meeting warrant asking whether the system should be used in the town. The question goes on the official ballot (or on an unofficial ballot if there is no official ballot), and if a majority votes in favor, the partisan ballot system will go into effect the following year.
The process. The partisan ballot system is governed by RSA 669:37 to :53. The following describes how the system will work in a municipality that adopts it.
The caucus. The process begins with nominations made by “a caucus of legal voters representing a political party,” but only if that party’s candidate for governor received at least 3 percent of the vote in the previous election. As a practical matter, this means that only the Republican and Democratic parties can nominate candidates, since, with one exception (2016), no other party’s gubernatorial candidate has received more than 3 percent of the vote in the last 30 years.
Thus, candidates for local office—selectboard, town clerk, trustees of the trust funds, land use boards, and many others—would be chosen by Republican and Democratic caucuses. If you are one of the 39 percent of New Hampshire voters who do not belong to either party, you could not participate in a caucus—and presumably you would have little chance of being nominated for any local office.
There is no quorum requirement for a caucus—it could be one or two people. The caucus must be held not later than the sixth Friday before the town election, which means around the end of January in most towns.
One might wonder how many people are likely to attend a caucus in late January to choose candidates for sewer commissioner. It seems fair to expect that only the most active—i.e., the most partisan—Republicans and Democrats will show up. Since each party can nominate only one candidate for each position, if you want to get your name on the ballot for town clerk, moderator, cemetery trustee, or anything else, you must put partisan politics over the nonpartisan problem solving that is the backbone of local government in New Hampshire.
A caucus must be “called by a notice posted in 4 conspicuous places in the town and published in some newspaper.” The statute does not say who calls the caucus. The caucus apparently may be held anywhere. Voting must be open for at least two hours, or three hours in a town with a population over 2,000.
The checklist. Under RSA 669:41, “The checklist for use at any caucus shall be prepared by the local executive committee of the party holding the caucus” after it receives “evidence and suggestions as to the make-up of the checklist.” What if there is no local executive committee? The statute does not say. But what is clear is that the town’s official voter checklist, scrupulously regulated by state law and overseen by the supervisors of the checklist to ensure its integrity, is not used. Instead, the “local executive committee”—if there is one—can create its own checklist, based on “evidence and suggestions” received.
Voting. Under RSA 669:43, voting at the caucus “shall be by ballot.” Secret ballot? The statute does not say. Under RSA 669:38, the party may “make regulations concerning the manner of holding the caucus consistent with the provisions of this subdivision.” Thus, again, the rules are whatever a small group of partisans decides.
Under RSA 669:48, “No person shall vote in any caucus unless he intends to support the ticket of the party holding the caucus at the next election.” Yes, you must support “the ticket.” Never mind that you may think the other party’s candidate for town clerk or moderator is the best candidate. If you intend to vote for that person, you may not vote in your party’s caucus. Doing so is a misdemeanor, punishable by a fine of up to $1,200.
An (extremely difficult) alternative for independents. It is not quite impossible for an independent candidate to get on the ballot under this system. RSA 669:52 allows, as an alternative to the party caucuses, nomination by “nomination papers.” This has its own process, governed by RSA 655:40 to :45. Any candidate for local office who does not want to submit to a party caucus would have to use this process.
To get on the ballot in this manner, a candidate must file 50 “nomination papers” signed by registered voters in the town. Note: one paper signed by 50 voters does not work; the candidate must file 50 separate papers, each signed by one voter. Each paper must include “the name and domicile of the candidate, the office for which the candidate is nominated, and the political organization or principles the candidate represents.”
The nomination papers must be filed with the supervisors of the checklist, not the town clerk. Since the supervisors in most towns do not have an office or
regular office hours, this will present its own challenge. The supervisors must check every paper and certify whether the voter who signed it is a registered voter in the town. Needless to say, a candidate will want to file well over 50 nomination papers to be certain that at least 50 of the signatories are registered voters.
This is in contrast to the non-partisan system currently used in every town, in which any candidate can get on the ballot by filing a one-sentence declaration of candidacy at the town clerk’s office. Even with the current system, most towns have trouble finding enough candidates to run. One can only imagine how much harder it would be with “nomination papers.”
An unadvertised special: exemption from public meeting requirements. The partisan ballot system comes with a feature that appears not in the election statutes, but in RSA 91-A, the Right-to-Know Law. That law requires “meetings” of public bodies to be open to the public; but the definition of “meeting” in RSA 91-A:2 excludes “a caucus consisting of elected members of a public body of the same political party who were … elected on a partisan basis by a town or city which has adopted a partisan ballot system.”
Thus, in a municipality that uses the partisan ballot system, if the majority of the members of the selectboard or city council, or any other local board or commission, are from the same political party, they can meet in private to discuss and decide every issue. They can then have a perfunctory public meeting where they vote on the matters they have already decided in private. If one member of the board is not a member of that party, he or she could be shut out of all meaningful discussion. If all members are from the same party, the entire board could essentially conduct all business in private; this would be perfectly legal.
Is the partisan ballot system a good idea? Of course, it’s a matter of opinion. Let’s review the consequences of choosing the partisan ballot system:
- It discourages participation by the almost 40 percent of New Hampshire voters who are not members of a political party.
- It lets a private organization use a murky process to decide who can participate in candidate selection and enables a few party activists to control the process.
- It means that candidates seeking nomination for town clerk, planning board, road agent, and every other elected office are likely to be judged not on their competence or knowledge of local government, but on their positions on immigration, abortion, the war in Ukraine, and whatever else the political parties deem important.
- It means that candidates who don’t want to align with a political party must spend hours jumping through hoops to get on the ballot.
- It enables majorities on the selectboard, land use boards, and every other elected board and commission to decide every issue in private.
- It virtually guarantees that local boards will become forums for partisan maneuvering and bickering, rather than serious discussion of town issues.
If that all sounds good, then yes, your municipality may want to be the first of 234 to choose this system. Otherwise, it should stick with the non-partisan system that has worked for New Hampshire municipalities for over 350 years.
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Cordell Johnston is an attorney who represents towns and cities, and is the town moderator in Henniker. Any opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and not necessarily of NHMA.