Friday, July 14, 2017

Democrats Upset that You have to Live in New Hampshire to Vote in New Hampshire

An 'extremely controversial' bill was signed into law recently in New Hampshire.  SB 3 was the New Hampshire "domicile bill" as the Union Leader put it in an Editorial entitled Voting in NH: You actually have to live here:
If you live in New Hampshire, you can vote in New Hampshire. 
If you don’t live in New Hampshire, you can’t vote in New Hampshire.
This should not be controversial, but ambiguity in the law led to confusion over what it means to be domiciled in the Granite State. . . . 
Democrats are oddly passionate about protecting access to the polls for people who don’t really live here. Our elections should be reserved for New Hampshire voters.
The Democrats main argument was that SB 3 disenfranchises college students.  As the Union Leader pointed out earlier:
Democrats are riling up college students with the specious argument that they wouldn’t be welcome in New Hampshire, hoping to spark protests. Given the stunning political ignorance on campuses these days, it’s a safe bet. Yet nothing in SB 3 would prevent a college student from declaring New Hampshire residency and casting a ballot. Freshmen might not arrive in time for the September primary, but could certainly register for the November general election. In fact, attending college is one of the criteria that could be used to establish residency.
A common example of the person who votes in New Hampshire with no intention of being domiciled in New Hampshire is the campaign worker.  The most famous example of this is Alana Biden, Joe Biden’s niece, who was working on his campaign in 2012:
Election Day is always big in New Hampshire, and in the months leading up the general election last year, Alana Biden the vice president’s niece, worked on the campaign of President Barack Obama in the Granite State.
Biden voted on Election Day by swearing in an affidavit that her domicile was 145 Steinmetz Drive in Manchester. After the election, she left the state and moved to New York, according to her LinkedIn profile.
State Sen. Martha Fuller Clark, D-District 21, has eight people registered to vote under her single-family address in Portsmouth. Several of them came to New Hampshire to work on campaigns for various periods of time and voted in elections before moving on.

Thanks to Secretary of State Bill Gardner's (Democrat) leadership and Governor Chris Sununu (Republican) signing the bill, New Hampshire voters will actually have to live in the state.  

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