By: David Brooks, Concord Monitor

In most elections, voters wonder about the candidates. For the county races at the bottom of our ballots, most people wonder about the office.

With that uncertainty in mind, the Monitor put together this short primer on the county positions up for election. But first, a little history.

New Hampshire was divided into counties in 1769, largely to make courts more accessible in the days when travel was tough. In 1855 county governments were formalized and took other functions that were too expensive for towns but not suitable for statewide government, such as county jails and the “county farm,” which housed indigent people.

In recent decades, the legislature has moved many of those functions away from counties to towns and cities, while oversight of courts has shifted to the state. The process hasn’t been neat and tidy, however, as can be seen most obviously in the job of Register of Probate.

The Register of Probate used to oversee the recording and maintenance of wills, trusts, adoption records and equity records plus some other legal documents. There were 10 of them, one in each county.

When New Hampshire unified courts in the late 1980s, the oversight of the documents was made part of the state government, and a reorganization of the courts in 2011 removed virtually all other work from the registrar. The probate registrar’s primary job is now the preservation of files that have “the potential for historical significance.”

So why wasn’t the position eliminated? Because constitutional changes made in 1877 require it to exist, elected on a county-by-county basis. To get rid of the job would require amending the state constitution; a couple attempts to do so have failed.

Then there’s the vexing question of elected versus appointed.

Why, for example, do the folks running the county nursing home and the county jail get appointed by the county commissioners, but the folks running the county sheriff’s office and county attorney’s office get elected by the public? There’s no reason aside from tradition and historical accident, really. There have been several efforts to change this in the state legislature, usually by making all of the positions appointed rather than elected, without any success.

All 10 counties have the same positions. All are two-year terms.

Here are some details about the positions in Merrimack County, courtesy of county administrator Ross Cunningham. The positions are presented here in the order they appear on most ballots.

Sheriff

JOB: The sheriff’s department provides a variety of law enforcement tasks, including providing security in all courts and transporting prisoners from jails to court hearings; providing dispatch services for police, fire and ambulance in many smaller towns; serving warrants and finding fugitives from justice; and serving civil papers for many types of cases, including evictions, child custody and domestic violence suits.

SALARY: $81,648. In January 2026 it goes to $85,730.

EMPLOYEES: 65 full-time and part-time and per diem positions, including deputies, court security, administrative support and dispatchers.

2024 BUDGET OVERSEEN: $5,183,939

CANDIDATES: David Croft (D), incumbent. Frank Cassidy (R)

County attorney

JOB: Prosecutes felonies and misdemeanor appeals in state courts. Equivalent of a district attorney in many other states. It does not handle federal cases, which are taken up by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Concord.

2025 SALARY: $121,113. In January 2026 it goes to $139,280

EMPLOYEES: 34, attorneys and support staff.

2024 BUDGET: $4,562,619

CANDIDATES: Paul Halvorson, incumbent, unopposed.

County Treasurer

JOB: Charged with collecting the county property tax from municipalities, overseeing financial accounts and investing county funds.

SALARY: $4,000 for a part-time position. The position is part of the business office.

CANDIDATES: Davis Bernstein (D); Mary Heath (R), incumbent

Register of Deeds

JOB: The office processes and keeps records about the selling and buying of land and buildings, including plans, foreclosures and the like.

SALARY: $77,010. In January 2026 it goes to $79,510

EMPLOYEES: Six full-time positions.

2024 BUDGET: $698,734

CANDIDATES: Erica Davis (D) incumbent; Samantha Morse (R)

Register of probate

JOB: The Register of Probate has virtually no duties since a 2011 court reorganization.

Candidates: Jane Bradstreet (D), incumbent; JRHoell (R)

County commissioners

JOB: There are three county commissioners, who are elected by district and serve staggered terms. They oversee the property and real estate belonging to the county, notably the jail and nursing home, and the various departments and the county budget, which in 2024 is $103,585,208. District 2, which covers 17 communities around Concord including Boscawen, Canterbury, Loudon, Pembroke, Warner and Franklin, is not up for election this year.

SALARY: $11,000 (chairman), others get $10,000 as of January 2025.

CANDIDATES: District 1 (Concord, Bow): Steve Shurtleff (D) unopposed, no incumbent. District 3 (Allenstown, Dunbarton, Epsom, Henniker, Hooksett, Hopkinton, Pittsfield): David LovleinJr. (R), incumbent; David Doherty (D). District 2 is not up for election this year, due to staggered terms of office.

David Brooks can be reached  at  dbrooks@cmonitor.com.

The Know Your Vote, youth voter guide project was designed, reported and produced by student and young professional journalists from The Clock, The Concord Monitor, The Equinox, Granite State News Collaborative, Keene State College, The Laconia Daily Sun, The Monadnock Ledger-Transcript, Nashua Ink Link and The Presidency and the Press program at Franklin Pierce University. See the full guide at www.collaborativenh.org/know-your-vote.