Were 50,000+ write-in votes for President Joe Biden "found" in New Hampshire to give him the win in the presidential primary? No, that's not true: The New Hampshire secretary of state's office told Lead Stories that the write-in votes were legitimate and there there were no 50,000 such votes "found" and added by the Democratic Party. The post making the claim on X also said Rep. Dean Phillips earned twice as many votes as Biden but lost the primary because of the 50,000 "found" votes. Phillips countered that on his X account, describing the claim as "shameful and absolutely untrue."
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on X, formerly known as Twitter, on January 24, 2024. It opened:
SOURCE: Rep. Dean Phillips received almost twice as many votes as Biden did in the New Hampshire primary. The Democrat Party, in an effort not to embarrass the president, 'found' 50,000+ write in votes for Biden to give him the 'win'. This follows Dean's claim that his party is 'Delusional Right Now.'
This is what the post looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Source: X screenshot taken on Thu Jan 25 21:09:13 2024 UTC)
The tens of thousands of write-in votes for Biden were not "found." They were publicly identified by the New Hampshire Secretary of State after the polls closed. Biden chose to skip the state's primary to have South Carolina as his first contest of the year so he was not on the ballot in New Hampshire. However, a super PAC raised about $1.5 million to run a grassroots campaign asking Democrats to write in Biden's name, which they did, as NPR reported (archived here).
Phillips posted a tweet on his official X account (archived here) on January 24, 2024, saying the claim of votes "found" was false:
This is shameful and absolutely untrue.
The State of New Hampshire manages its elections with great integrity and efficiency, and Joe Biden won the NH Democratic primary election last evening fair and square. pic.twitter.com/fX4TvvkWZI
-- Dean Phillips (@deanbphillips) January 24, 2024
Lead Stories contacted Anna Sventek (archived here), the spokesperson for New Hampshire Secretary of State David Scanlan, a Republican (archived here). Asked via telephone on January 25, 2024, if the Democratic Party in New Hampshire "found" 50,000+ write-in votes for Biden that gave him the win in the presidential primary on January 23, 2024, Sventek responded, "No." She shared a statement from the secretary of state:
The results of the 2024 New Hampshire presidential primary are as reported on our website.
According to the secretary of state website, in the section "2024 Democratic Presidential Primary Election Results," (archived here) and "President of the United States Write-Ins," there is a "Summary by counties" Excel spreadsheet that states there were 77,061 write-in votes for Biden in the state:
(Source: New Hampshire Secretary of State website screenshot taken on Thu Jan 25 21:14:22 2024 UTC)
Phillips received 23,977 votes in the state, per the website under "2024 Democratic Presidential Primary Election Results," (archived here) and "Summary by counties" in the section titled, "President of the United States":
(Source: New Hampshire Secretary of State website screenshot taken on Thu Jan 25 21:22:31 2024 UTC)
Sventek explained that the process of writing in a name on a ballot in the New Hampshire party begins when a voter goes to the polls on Election Day.
If a person is already registered, they go to the ballot clerk, give their ID and their name, address and party affiliation. Once that is verified, they will be given a ballot that matches their party affiliation. For a write-in, there is a bubble that says "write-in" and then the voter can write for whom they would like to vote. Counties in New Hampshire count votes by two methods -- by machine or by hand -- Sventek said.
Lead Stories has already fact checked the claim that Joe Biden is the first person to win a presidential primary as a write-in candidate.
