“For Mr. Miller to make up such an outrageous lie is unacceptable for anyone who works in the White House,” said Ray Buckley, chair of the New Hampshire Democratic Party. | AP Photo New Hampshire fires back after White House’s false voting fraud claims

New Hampshire state officials and operatives on both sides of the aisle are fighting back after White House Senior Policy Adviser Stephen Miller renewed false claims over the weekend that there was widespread voter fraud in the state.

Miller, who briefly worked on Scott Brown’s failed 2014 senate campaign in New Hampshire, told ABC's George Stephanopoulos that voter fraud is a major issue both nation-wide and in New Hampshire.


“Having worked before on a campaign in New Hampshire, I can tell you that this issue of busing voters into New Hampshire is widely known by anyone who’s worked in New Hampshire politics,” Miller said. “It’s very real, it’s very serious.”

His remarks drew sharp criticism from state election officials — and fellow Republicans. “There’s zero evidence to support it,” former state GOP chair Fergus Cullen said. “It’s preposterous, completely untrue, delusional.”

“For Mr. Miller to make up such an outrageous lie is unacceptable for anyone who works in the White House,” Ray Buckley, chair of the New Hampshire Democratic Party, said. “It’s an outrageous attack on the people of New Hampshire. We run among the finest operation in the first in the nation primary and in our general election.”

While the administration has never produced any evidence of widespread fraud — and election officials and experts have condemned the claims as completely baseless — top White House officials, including President Donald Trump himself, continue to suggest there was widespread wrongdoing during the election. Trump said during a private meeting with senators that “thousands” of people on buses from Massachusetts cost him and former Sen. Kelly Ayotte victories in that state. Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton defeated Trump by nearly 3,000 votes, while Ayotte lost to Sen. Maggie Hassan by just 743 votes.

Although operatives say rumor of busing people from Massachusetts into the state has been floating around state politics for a while, it is viewed as a completely unproven, fringe conspiracy theory.

“I suspect the rumor is as old as buses are,” Cullen said. “It’s been around for at least 20 years, every single election year, there has been discussion.”

New Hampshire Secretary of State William Gardner did not return a call for comment, but has said voter fraud is not rampant in the state. Deputy Secretary of State Dave Scanlan confirmed Monday to New Hampshire Public radio that there is no evidence of busloads of out-of-staters coming to New Hampshire to vote. Less than .2 percent of voters did not present acceptable ID at the polls, Scanlan told NHPR.

Dante Scala, a professor of political science at the University of New Hampshire, said there’s no evidence to the back up the Trump administration’s claims.

“It’s a story, the whole story about the buses is something that’s well-traveled in New Hampshire,” Scala. “No one produces evidence of it, but it tends to be something that circulates every few years.”

On Friday, Cullen offered $1,000 in a tweet to anyone who could provide any evidence of voters from Massachusetts busing to New Hampshire to vote. He said no one had claimed the prize because that evidence does not exist.

“For Miller to go out and double down and triple down on Sunday is really sad,” Cullen said. “I understand he did some work on Scott Brown’s 2014 senate campaign, but Jeanne Shaheen won that election and it’s not because of fraud.”

One veteran GOP operative did note that buses have been used to bring voters to the polls from college campuses. The operative, who requested anonymity to talk candidly about state politics, said while rumors of buses from Massachusetts have been around “forever” the rumor remains unproven.

“They’re not busing from Mass., they're college students, and they’re totally allowed to vote here,” he said. “Both parties do it, but the Dems do a better job than us at that, honestly.”

Buckley said the Republicans were guilty of the most recent large-scale voter fraud, when Republicans jammed the phone line of Democratic “get out the vote” efforts in the 2002 senate election. Republican John Sununu defeated Shaheen in that election, but the scandal resulted in jail time for a couple of operatives and the Republicans were ordered to pay the Democrats $125,000.

Although Clinton and Hassan won, Chris Sununu was elected governor and Republicans did well in state legislative elections.

Sununu was criticized during the campaign for saying people from Massachusetts have been bused in to vote in the past, comments he has since walked back.

While saying the state didn’t have “any evidence that we are aware of” of the fraud the Trump administration is claiming, Sununu called for a tightening of voting rules in the state.

“We haven’t pursued a significant case of voter fraud in the state in years,” the governor told NHPR. “Part of it is the law is so lose its really hard to go after those folks and prove anything. We have a very loose system here.”