New Hampshire: GOP-backed election bill may complicate voting for homeless | Associated Press

Every Election Day, Chrissy Simonds makes the rounds to homeless shelters and transitional housing in Manchester urging people to vote. Simonds, who was once homeless, often faces skepticism from people who tell her their vote doesn’t matter. Still, she presses on. In November, she convinced seven people to vote — a record, if small. But Simonds and other advocates fear a bill in the New Hampshire legislature will create further barriers to voting for a population that already feels marginalized. The Republican-authored bill adds new requirements for anyone who registers within 30 days of an election to provide documentation, such as a lease or a driver’s license, to show where they live and that they plan to stay there. For people without a fixed address, such documents may not exist or be difficult to access.

New Hampshire: What Would Changing Registration Rules in New Hampshire Mean For Student Voters? | NHPR

Last fall, University of New Hampshire student Rachel Berg was one of the more than 3,000 people in Durham who registered to vote on Election Day. And she came prepared. “I had to bring a few forms of ID, I don’t remember exactly what,” Berg recalled while sitting in a corner of the UNH student center last week. “License, I think. School ID. And maybe my passport, just to be safe.” Berg, who’s from Grantham originally, also needed to be able to prove she lived in Durham. In her case, that meant bringing along a package her parents used to mail an orthopedic ankle brace to her on-campus apartment.

New Hampshire: Sununu to sign into law bill allowing ratification of snowstorm-delayed local election results | WMUR

Gov. Chris Sununu will sign into law legislation allowing officials of towns and school districts that postponed their elections due to the March 14 snowstorm to take action to ratify the results of those elections, his spokesman said Thursday. In rapid fire action, the House and Senate suspended their rules and established a committee of conference, which quickly reached agreement on a minor change to the bill. They then suspended their respective rules to consider the committee of conference report, which was adopted by the Senate on voice vote and by the House on a roll call of 294-42. Those votes sent the bill to Sununu's desk, and spokesman Michael Todd told WMUR he will sign it.

New Hampshire: House debates bill that would change voting rights | WMUR

Supporters of a voting-rights bill said Tuesday that it's aimed at cutting down on voter fraud, but opponents called it a solution in search of a problem. Senate Bill 3 would change the definition of "domicile" for voting purposes. People living in New Hampshire for 30 days or fewer before an election wouldn't be able to vote unless they could prove intent to stay longer. Anyone registering within 30 days of an election or on Election Day would have to fill out a form, and if they don't have proof of residency that meets the bill's requirements, they would have to present that proof to local officials later.

New Hampshire: Showdown over controversial voting rights bill moves to state House | NH1

Is election law reform the issue that unites Republicans in the state House of Representatives? House Majority Leader Dick Hinch tells NH1 News that he thinks the bill approved by the state Senate will also “pass the House.” Hinch spoke with NH1 News on Monday, the day before the battle over the measure that would tighten New Hampshire’s voting laws by adding new requirements to prove eligibility moves to the House. The House Election Law Committee holds a 10am Tuesday hearing in Representatives Hall on the much-argued about measure. The bill, officially known as SB3, mandates that anyone who registers to vote either prior to or on Election Day itself, thanks to the state's same-day registration law, present definitive proof that they reside in the Granite State.

New Hampshire: Town Clerk: GOP Voting Bill “Overwhelmingly Complicated And Confusing” | New Hampshire Public Radio

The uproar over Senate Bill 3 shows no signs of abating. The bill's lead sponsor, Republican state senator Regina Birdsell, insists it simply ensures that each vote cast in New Hampshire is valid and that voters meet certain requirements. She says she removed elements that were especially objectionable to opponents, including involvement of local police in helping to confirm voters' addresses. “We are looking to make sure that anyone who casts a ballot has a stake in the community that they say they’re domiciled in,” she said on The Exchange. Birdsell denied that college students or members of the military will be adversely affected.

New Hampshire: Another plan to deal with elections moved by the blizzard | Concord Monitor

Another option has been added to the ongoing puzzle about how to cope with town meeting elections that were moved due to the March 14 blizzard: a proposal to allow local elected officials to decide whether the election was legal. The proposal, which describes itself as “the least detrimental of two unfortunate options,” was put forward in an amendment added to House Bill 329, a bill created to study how municipalities do their billing. The plan would ratify all elections for offices held by the roughly 73 communities that postponed town meeting voting due to the snowstorm that hit March 14. It would then give the local governing body, such as the select board or the school board, authority to ratify or not ratify everything else that was done by voters, which includes zoning ordinances and, for SB 2 communities, all other town business, including budgets and bonded warrant articles.

New Hampshire: E-Poll book trial program under consideration at the Statehouse | WMUR

New Hampshire is inching closer to bringing new technology into its elections. On First-in-the-Nation Primary Day in 2016 the lone polling location in Merrimack was swamped. Citizens waited for hours to cast ballots. Some gave up before getting a chance to vote. "It was just too hard to get there," one voter said. "There was no way I was going to sit in traffic for that long." The gridlock was largely the product of high turnout and a redesigned traffic pattern. But some of the wait may have been alleviated by E-Poll books; electronic versions of the paper checklists maintained by local election officials.

New Hampshire: Plan to ratify postponed elections fails | Eagle Tribune

With the failure of Speaker of the House Shawn Jasper's plan to ratify postponed election results, lawmakers are looking for a new way forward. The Hudson Republican's amendment, which died Tuesday evening at the end of a several-hours long Election Law Committee session, asked towns to hold hearings and possibly special elections to ratify their own election results. Judy Silva, executive director of the New Hampshire Municipal Association, said that the testimony of numerous town moderators tipped the scales and prevented the special election amendment from passing.

New Hampshire: Jasper bill would give towns option to ratify delayed votes | Associated Press

House Speaker Shawn Jasper wants to give Hampton Falls and other towns that postponed their elections due to a snowstorm a way out of facing potential lawsuits from voters who may have been disenfranchised. Jasper is proposing letting towns ratify the results of their elections by holding another vote. A bill he’s sponsoring would give towns that moved Election Day the option of letting townspeople vote to ratify, or confirm, the results on May 23. Jasper believes it was illegal for towns to move their elections and he’s warned towns could face lawsuits. But he says ratifying the results would prevent further chaos.

New Hampshire: U.S. Supreme Court declines to review ruling striking down ban on ‘ballot selfies’ | Union Leader

The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to review lower court rulings striking down New Hampshire's ban on "ballot selfies." The American Civil Liberties Union of New Hampshire challenged the state's ban on "ballot selfies," a prohibition of a voter taking a photo of their marked ballots and posting on social media to show how they voted, in 2014. Lower courts sided with the ACLU and three voters in the Granite State on the grounds of free speech. The ACLU represented former Rep. Leon H. Rideout, Andrew Langlois, and Brandon D. Ross, in the suit against Secretary of State William Gardner. Rideout said Monday the state was overreacting to new technology and social media. “I’m actually kind of surprised it went this far,” he said.

New Hampshire: As state considers letting towns upgrade polling tech, vendors show off wares | Concord Monitor

If New Hampshire allows electronic check-in at polling places, replacing ballot clerks drawing lines through voter names in printed books with people touching icons on computer tablet screens, it will be due in part to one unlikely motivation: the alphabet. “There’s nothing more frustrating to a voter than standing in line because your name starts with the letters A to D, but the M-to-Z check-in line is empty. ... This eliminates that,” said Rob Rock, the director of elections for Rhode Island, describing his state’s experience with what are known as electronic poll books. Speed and convenience, both for voters and for polling-place workers, were big selling points Friday as vendors of five companies that make e-poll books pitched their wares to state and local election officials in the Legislative Office Building.

New Hampshire: Senate Kills Bill to Remove Redistricting Authority from State Legislature | New Hampshire Public Radio

The Republican-controlled state Senate killed a bill Thursday that would create an independent redistricting commission for state elections. Under New Hampshire law legislators have the job of re-drawing the state’s political map after every census report. That includes drawing district lines for the state House and Senate, the Executive Council, and New Hampshire’s two congressional districts.

New Hampshire: Offices ask Gov. Sununu to investigate voter fraud claims, preserve state reputation | Concord Monitor

Several New Hampshire towns are asking Gov. Chris Sununu to investigate claims of voter fraud made by President Donald Trump. Webster’s select board signed its letter at a meeting Monday evening. “All municipalities, including Webster, take great pride in the integrity of our elections and the way in which they are managed by municipal employees and dedicated volunteers,” the letter reads. Referencing Trump’s claims that both he and Republican U.S. Sen. Kelly Ayotte lost in New Hampshire because “thousands” of voters were illegally bused in from Massachusetts, the Webster select board said these allegations reflect poorly on New Hampshire and “deserve serious attention.”

New Hampshire: GOP election reform bill expected to pass NH Senate on party line vote | WMUR

Expect an impassioned, and probably lengthy, debate Thursday morning when the Republican-backed voting reform bill, Senate Bill 3, comes to the state Senate floor for a vote. The bill tightens the requirements for new voters to show that they are domiciled in the state. It doesn’t stop anyone who goes to the polls without an ID from voting, but requires proof of residency be provided afterwards. But by all accounts, the bill -– dubbed a “voter suppression” bill -– by its opponents, is fully expected to pass the Senate on a 14-9 party-line vote. Read two of our earlier reports on the bill here and here.

New Hampshire: Senate committee approves bill tightening voting requirements | WMUR

A push to tighten the rules over who can vote in New Hampshire is moving forward, but opponents said it's not needed and is only a controversy because of remarks made by the president. The bill calls for new standards for proving residency. Sponsor Sen. Regina Birdsell, R-Hampstead, said that new requirements are needed because every election, some of the letters sent by the Secretary of State's Office to verify addresses of voters who take part in same-day registration don't reach anyone.

New Hampshire: Lawmakers dig through legal consequences of snowy town voting mess | Concord Monitor

The unprecedented delay of last week’s elections in one-third of New Hampshire towns due to a blizzard has put millions of dollars in town spending in limbo, called the integrity of local elections into question, and left some town officials worrying about possible prosecution. All of this was too much for the Senate Election Law Committee to untangle Tuesday. On a 3-2 party line vote, the group declined to send the full Senate a bill that ratified elections scrambled by the weather and instead established a study committee. Facing a legal deadline to make a decision by the end of the day Tuesday, the majority cited an inability to balance the needs of those who voted, those who didn’t vote and those who may want to protest votes until lawmakers can get more information – particularly since at least two towns (Derry and Hampstead) hadn’t even voted at the time. “This is asking us to ratify things that haven’t even happened yet,” said Sen. Regina Birdsell, R-Hampstead, chairwoman of the committee.

New Hampshire: Who Gets to Claim a Stake in New Hampshire Elections? Untangling a Question at the Heart of ‘Domicile’ Debate | New Hampshire Public Radio

Curtis Moore has voted in New Hampshire since 2008. He says he's got a New Hampshire driver’s license and a New Hampshire mailing address in the town of Randolph — where he's worked off and on for the Randolph and Appalachian Mountain Clubs for nearly two decades. As far as he can recall, registering to vote here in the first place was pretty simple. "I just went to the town clerk and gave her an address," Moore says. "I think I did have a New Hampshire license at the time that maybe she looked at. Maybe not." Either way, he says, "I had a couple of things for proof." Right now, though, Moore’s not in New Hampshire. In fact, he spends very little time in the state these days. "When I initially became a New Hampshire resident, it was probably close to 50 percent of the year," Moore says. "Now, it's probably more like 10 percent — or maybe even less. It's dwindled with time." Moore’s line of work takes him all over the place. Right now, he's in New Zealand, but he plans to be back in the summer.

New Hampshire: Pending storm stirs legal question over Tuesday elections | Associated Press

There was no calm before the storm, just lots of confusion. Local elections for most New Hampshire towns were scheduled for Tuesday, the day a nor'easter is expected. Many towns decided to postpone them, even though the secretary of state's office said they couldn't. Republican Gov. Chris Sununu, following a conference call with towns and the attorney general, strongly recommended Monday that the elections be held. "We think that's a very important part of the process," he said. "But given those differing opinions I don't think we're in a position to mandate that towns stay open."

New Hampshire: State Senate passes bill to allow electronic poll book trial program | Union Leader

The Senate passed a bill to allow towns and cities to participate in an electronic poll book trial program, but rejected a proposal for New Hampshire to join 38 other states with online voter registration. The votes Thursday followed continued debate on election law changes, with legislators taking measured steps to modernize state statutes. A number of communities, including Manchester, have expressed interest in use of an electronic poll book and devices for voter registration rolls and check-in. The trial program must be compliant with existing law, from voter checklists to delivery of data to the Secretary of State in a way that is compatible with the statewide centralized voter registration database.

New Hampshire: Bill would add new requirements to prove voter eligibility | Associated Press

A Republican-backed election law bill is drawing criticism for a provision that says local police might visit people’s homes to verify they are legally eligible to vote. “This is a very hard thing for the League of Women Voters to watch, an attempt to change voting laws based on unsubstantiated claims and fears of widespread voter fraud,” Liz Tentarelli, president of the league’s New Hampshire chapter, testified Tuesday during a public hearing on the Senate bill. The bill aims to put stricter scrutiny on people who register to vote on Election Day or within 30 days of its arrival by requiring them to show verifiable proof that they intend to live in the state. Proof would include a driver’s license, evidence of residence at a university, a lease or deed, or a handful of other items. One provision in the bill says volunteering on a political campaign counts as a “temporary purpose” and, on its own, doesn’t qualify someone to vote in New Hampshire.

New Hampshire: Bill Would Bar Voting By People in New Hampshire For ‘Temporary Purposes’ | New Hampshire Public Radio

Republican lawmakers have proposed dozens of individual bills to tighten up New Hampshire election laws this year, but one new proposal coming forward this week would on its own enact a number of changes in what’s required for voters to register and how officials are expected to verify those credentials. The bill would specifically bar anyone who comes to New Hampshire only for “temporary purposes” from voting in the state – in this case, that includes anyone who’s here less than 30 days for vacation, anyone here for short-term work, volunteering or “working to influence voters in an upcoming election.” If someone already voted somewhere else and planned to return to vote there again in the future, that person “does not gain a domicile in New Hampshire regardless of the duration of his or her presence in New Hampshire.”

New Hampshire: New sweeping Senate GOP voter registration bill detailed: Requires ‘verifiable’ proof of domicile | WMUR

Comprehensive Republican legislation aimed at tightening the state’s voter registration process requires that new voters back up their claims of a Granite State domicile with “a verifiable act or acts” showing that they are not in New Hampshire temporarily. The legislation also makes it clear that voting in more than one state in the same election a is Class B felony with a maximum sentence of seven years in prison and a fine of no more than $4,000. State Sen. Regina Birdsell, R-Hampstead, first described her comprehensive amendment to Senate Bill 3 in an exclusive interview with WMUR.com a week ago. The 11-page amendment has now been drafted, and it was officially released on Thursday by the state Senate. View the amendment here.

New Hampshire: Dartmouth researchers find no evidence of bused-in voters | Concord Monitor

If crowds of Massachusetts residents came into New Hampshire on Election Day as part of widespread voter fraud – a claim made by President Donald Trump’s administration and others – they managed to do so without creating any spikes in voter turnout and without creating any unusual changes in town-by-town support for Kelly Ayotte. That’s the conclusion of a study from a trio of Dartmouth researchers, whose work follows their previous studies that failed to find evidence of any voter fraud during the 2016 presidential election in six states. “Because of these results and a total lack of photographic evidence of buses infiltrating New Hampshire on Election Day 2016, we believe that Trump’s claims about a tainted election in New Hampshire are at best unsupported and at worst an intentional mistruth,” says the report from two professors and a postdoctoral fellow.

New Hampshire: State legislation prohibiting out-of-state voting pending | The New Hampshire

The New Hampshire State House is currently considering several bills that would impact voting and election laws in the state. Students, along with many others, would be highly affected by these new bills if they were to be passed. A Republican-led state house has put forward more than 40 new election bills that will be voted upon in the upcoming months. David Bates, a Republican state representative from Windham, has been the guiding force behind most of these bills that oppose such voting. Election officials in New Hampshire have repeatedly said that there is no widespread voter fraud in the state, according to NHPR. The definition of domicile would be changed under these laws, meaning that those who do not plan to stay in the state on a relatively permanent-basis would no longer be allowed to vote. With these laws in place, out-of-state students would no longer be allowed to vote.

New Hampshire: Bills seek to tighten New Hampshire’s voter eligibility | Seacoast Online

State legislators are considering a raft of voting-related bills this session, including several aimed at tightening eligibility at the polls. The Senate is considering proposals targeting the definition of a domicile, the standard used to determine if someone can legally vote in New Hampshire. House members have submitted bills to change the definition of residency and require the Secretary of State's Office to investigate voting irregularities, among others. Another high-profile House bill that would have eliminated same-day voter registration was amended, then later effectively killed. All told, both chambers will review nearly 50 bills related to voting, a notable increase over previous sessions, according to the Secretary of State's Office.

New Hampshire: New state Senate GOP voter registration plan tightens proof-of-residency requirements | WMUR

“Trust, but verify,” she said. “We trust you, but we want you to bring in proof.” The second-term Hampstead Republican, who chairs the Senate Election Law and Internal Affairs Committee, shared with WMUR.com the basics of her long-awaited amendment to Senate Bill 3 Thursday. “My constituents have been clamoring for this,” she said. Her bill requires that anyone who registers to vote within 30 days of an election, or on Election Day, present definitive proof of residency in the state. Those who do not can still vote but would be required to provide proof of residency to town and city clerks no more than 10 or 30 days after the election, depending on where they live. It’s a shorter turnaround requirement than under current law, and the follow-up provision in her bill would allow police on routine patrol to visit a home to seek proof of residency from the voter. Election law reform has been among the biggest issues at the State House this year in the aftermath of the 2016 election. It was drawing the attention of Gov. Chris Sununu and lawmakers even before President Donald Trump put New Hampshire in the national spotlight two weeks ago by making an unsubstantiated claim that that thousands of people were bused into the state from Massachusetts and voted illegally.

New Hampshire: Lawmaker Proposes Closing Primaries, Cites Potential For Electoral Sabotage | NHPR

The way Rep. Norman Silber sees it, a party primary is supposed to select the best person who represents the values and platform of that particular political party — and allowing undeclared voters to weigh in allows for too much electoral mischief. “It’s not unheard of that some true members of a party who happen to be registered as undeclared choose to vote in the other party’s primary to try to get the worst candidate or at least the one notionally easiest to beat for the general election,” Silber, a Republican from Gilford, told his colleagues at a House Election Law Committee hearing Tuesday morning. “And this applies irrespective of what party you’re registered as.”

New Hampshire: Many In New Hampshire Politics Pan Trump’s Unfounded Voter Fraud Claims | New Hampshire Public Radio

Party leaders on both sides of the aisle are defending New Hampshire's electoral system in the wake of another unsubstantiated claim by President Donald Trump that there's massive voter fraud happening in the state. "Let me be as unequivocal as possible: allegations of voter fraud in NH are baseless, without any merit-it's shameful to spread these fantasies," wrote former N.H. Attorney General Tom Rath, also a longtime Republican strategist, in a tweet Sunday. Trump made the claim again during a meeting last week with Congressional leaders, telling them that he and former Sen. Kelly Ayotte would have won in New Hampshire were it not for the thousands of Massachusetts residents "brought in on buses" to vote illegally in the state.

New Hampshire: Sununu says he’s unaware of widespread voter fraud in the Granite State | WMUR

Gov. Chris Sununu said Monday he is unaware of widespread voter fraud in the Granite State, but he said he wants to work with President Donald Trump’s administration to “learn of any evidence they may have.” The governor issued a statement to WMUR.com after several days of a media and social media firestorm over Trump’s assertion – and the assertion of Trump's senior White House policy adviser – that thousands of people from Massachusetts were bused into New Hampshire to vote illegally in the November election. Neither produced evidence of their claims, and a Federal Election Commission member called on Trump to produce evidence. See WMUR.com’s recent reports here, here and here.