Breaking a week of silence, Carol Elliott, the former Grafton County Treasurer, called Treasurer-elect Vanessa Sievers '10 a "teenybopper" who won her seat solely based on support from "brainwashed" college students, in an interview with the Valley News. Elliott also said that the "real people" in Grafton County voted for herself, not Sievers.
Sievers, running on the Democratic ticket, defeated Elliot, the Republican incumbent, by a margin of 586 votes, according to data released by the Office of the New Hampshire Secretary of State. Sievers fared particularly well in Grafton County's college towns, Hanover and Plymouth, which is Elliott's hometown.
Elliott expressed concern that Sievers and Democrat Bill Sharp, Grafton County's newly re-elected Register of Deeds, will not be capable of performing the duties of their offices.
"You've got a buffoon for a register of deeds, and you've got a teenybopper for a treasurer," Elliot told the Valley News.
Sievers said that she and Elliott had never met, and Elliott's personal attacks are unwarranted.
Elliot is being a sore loser, Sharp said, and should exit gracefully.
"I thought the election was over, but the mudslide's still going," he said.
Sharp called Elliott's comments "ridiculous," adding that Sievers has the full support of the Upper Valley Democrats. Elliot's comments are doing the county a disservice, he said.
Sievers's election, and Elliott's vitriolic response, earned national coverage in The New York Times on Thursday.
"If anyone is hurting the citizens of the county, she is," Sharp said. "By calling us names, you see, she's degraded Vanessa and the Registry, and the whole point is that the public should have confidence in the work that we do."
Ludlow Flower, chairman of the Grafton County GOP, called Sievers "underqualified" in an interview with The Dartmouth, though he said he has "no impression" of her because they have never met.
College students should not be eligible to vote in local elections because they are only local residents for a short period of time, Flower added. Students who live in off-campus housing are an exception, he said, as long as they register their cars in New Hampshire and pay New Hampshire taxes.
Students have a collective "sheep mentality," Flower said, and vote in blocs.
"They voted for Obama and then just picked off all the other candidates down the Democratic list," he said. "Besides Sievers, I doubt if there are more than half a dozen students on the Dartmouth campus who are even aware of what the treasurer does."
But Flower's perception of college students is inaccurate, according to Sievers. Dartmouth students are particularly active members of the Grafton County community, she said, citing student participation in local political campaigns and community service, and students who hold jobs in the county.
Nobody who meets the legal criteria to vote should be denied that right, Sharp said, echoing Sievers's view.
"Whoever votes, votes, or we have some other form of a government," Sharp said. "Maybe [Elliott] wants an aristocracy, where the Republican elite run the show."
Elliott did not return repeated calls made by The Dartmouth. In her comments to The Valley News, Elliott suggested that she may attempt to change the laws that allowed Sievers to run for county office.
The Grafton County Republicans may be overreacting to Elliott's loss, Sharp said.
"They really don't get it," he said. "They have no sense of humor."
John Chamberlain, chair of the Upper Valley Democrats, questioned whether administrative positions like Sievers's and Sharp's should be elected posts in the first place, because the positions have no influence on policy.
Chamberlain's concern, Flower said, is a typically Democratic response, suggesting Chamberlain's opinion is part of a larger political agenda to advance the Democratic Party and replace elected positions with a bureaucracy.
"They [the Democrats] won't stop until they've turned the whole town Democratic," Flower said.
Had Elliott been more collegial when she held the post, she would not be out of her position, Sharp said. The county treasurer keeps an account linked to the office of the Register of Deeds as a checks-and-balances measure, Sharp said. According to Sharp, Elliot would not disclose to him the amount in the account. After this incident, Sharp approached the Dartmouth College Democrats to discuss finding someone who could challenge Elliott in the 2008 election.
Elliott denied the incident to the Valley News.
Sievers, Sharp said, did nothing underhanded.
"Vanessa did the all-American thing," Sharp said. "She saw there was an opening, got her name on the ballot, ordered a bunch of signs, campaigned and won. What's so bad about that?"
The Treasurer is up for reelection every two years, and while Elliott told the Valley News she does not know if she will run for office in 2010, Flower said Elliott would win handily if she runs. An inordinate number of students, Flower said, were galvanized by President-elect Barack Obama to vote, but there will not be that sort of momentum during a mid-term election.
Sievers disagreed, saying it might be easier to focus students on local elections when there are not "big names" on the ballot.
