CONCORD – Rockingham County Attorney Patricia Conway asked Gov. Chris Sununu to withdraw her nomination to serve as a Superior Court judge on Wednesday, two days after incoming Attorney General John Formella was asked to investigate possible voter fraud allegations against her dating back to 2008.
“…So we won’t be taking that up,” Sununu told the Executive Council at their regular meeting. That was the end of the discussion on the subject with Sununu offering no explanation for Conway’s withdrawal.
Associate Attorney General James Boffetti told InDepthNH.org Wednesday that Formella received a request from Executive Councilor Cinde Warmington, D-Concord, on Monday to do a full investigation of allegations that Conway voted in Atkinson in 2008 while living in Salem.
But there were some concerns.
The New Hampshire Bar Association Board of Governors gave her qualified support for the role but with reservations for her impartiality and fairness, Executive Councilor Cinde Warmington of Concord said.
Conway, a resident of Salem, who was first elected to the post of Rockingham County Attorney in 2014 after being an assistant county attorney for 16 years, said she thought there may be some who would see her as focused on the role of prosecutor, which she understood.
While she said some may be concerned about her lack of civil law experience, she could learn and that in the law it is really about placing facts to the law, be it civil or criminal.
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Pat Conway appeared before the Executive Council Wednesday during a public hearing as she seeks to serve as a superior court justice.
Conway, a Salem Republican in her fourth term as Rockingham County Attorney, was nominated by Gov. Chris Sununu.
The career prosecutor told council members that she had the “demeanor, background and experience” to sit on the bench.
She also defended her record in the wake of a letter issued by the New Hampshire Bar Association that said while it found Conway qualified, it had “reservations about her legal knowledge outside of criminal law and with reservations about her impartiality and fairness.“