The House, Wednesday, March 8, 2017

Rep. David Huot (D - Belk 5)Thank you, Mister Speaker. I rise in opposition to the committee report of Ought to Pass on HB 372. Three words that have dogged the legislature and the whole voting process in New Hampshire since approximately 1862, are "inhabitant," "resident," and "domicile." Anyone who understands those three things may come forward because I have a hard time with analyzing them. It all started in 1862 when the Supreme Court added the word "domicile" to the mix, except they spelled it without an "e." The 1972 statute that was in effect when the lawsuit that was referred to in the majority blurb was decided in the federal court, declared unconstitutional a section of the law which said that in order to create a domicile you have to be there with intention to remain indefinitely and that was found to be unconstitutional. House Bill 372 attempts to make that better by eliminating the words for the indefinite future. Unfortunately, 46 years have passed since that decision and the law has been amended, I believe, five times. At the present time, the source of all the controversy has become students who reside in New Hampshire while they are in college and then they go on to something else. The process was changed when the election laws were all codified in chapters like 654 and in that statute the students were specifically enfranchised so that if you look at RSA 654, section I and section I-a, you'll find that students specifically have the right to vote. It doesn't have anything to do with the statute HB 372 is talking about. That is the general definition of "resident" and "residence," although they also use the word - one section uses "inhabitant" and the other one uses "domicile," but it is the section that just generally describes how you construe statutes in New Hampshire as a whole bunch of sections in Chapter 21. The only people who are going to benefit from the passage of HB 372 are the lawyers who are going to argue over what it means. Thank you.

Speaker JasperThe Chair recognizes the member from Goffstown, Rep. Barbara Griffin, to speak in favor of the committee report.

Rep. Barbara Griffin (R - Hills 6)Thank you, Mister Speaker and thank you to my committee member and fellow attorney for promising that we'll both be employed after this bill one way or another. In regards to this bill, which I consider to be very important for a number of reasons, I think that it's important to read the blurb on this for both sides because I realized as I was sitting here this morning that the minority argues that one of the main problems with this change is that it is affecting the definition of "resident" and "residency" in motor vehicle statutes in our laws and it will require people perhaps to register their motor vehicle who are not otherwise doing. These same people want you to be able to register to vote when you register your motor vehicle so we are in a way, by proposing this, helping this process along because what we are clarifying is what the courts said in 1972 was a problem with language that said, "for the indefinite future." "For the indefinite future" means that there is a question as to whether or not you as a citizen are afforded the due process rights that you are granted through the 14th Amendment to this state. Now, I can't speak to what laws have been changed over the course of time since then. I'm sure some have been changed and some have been changed back, but I do know that the definition in regards to "resident" and "residency" in regards to voting had to be changed. There were actually lawsuits in this state in regards to the issues tied to motor vehicles as recently as 2014. So, by making this very important change to the definition, we now make our definitions consistent. This amendment is supported by the Secretary of State's Office and was vetted by numerous agencies throughout the state as to what it would affect. The objection to this appears to be that if you live in this state and you say I am only here for a few years, you don't have to comply with our laws. I'm not sure that as a principle makes any sense, but I know that for purposes of legal consistency, as required and set forth in court decisions back in 1972 in the Circuit Court and recently in 2014, this change needs to be made. I will note that this bill was objected to in testimony by certain people who appear regularly before our committee because they said that somehow this was going to create a hurdle to voting because it would require people to register their motor vehicle if they were living here. You see that in the minority blurb. If that's the consequence of this, I'm not sure that's a bad thing, but what I know, the consequence of this will be that our laws will be consistent, they will be clearer and our ability to have our agencies enforce our laws, of any type, as to whether you are a resident and subject to the privileges of this state will be better. I ask you to support the committee recommendation and thank you for your time.

Rep. Andrew White (D - Graf 13)Thank you, Mister Speaker. Part I, Article 11 of the New Hampshire Constitution spells it out fairly clearly that the floor, the reasons that people can obtain an absentee ballot, the floor, the legislature must provide for people with physical disabilities and for those that are out of town on the day of an election. That's what our constitution says. State law has 7 reasons why a person can obtain an absentee ballot. Over the years, this legislature has found itself in situations where we want to make sure people who are eligible to vote are allowed to vote and so we have expanded it to include taking care of a family member or needs to be at work, things like that. I think those are all appropriate. The world is changing. Life is different in 2017 than it was in the 1800's. People have families, commitments and there are reasons other than those 7 enumerated in law a person might want to vote absentee. So, this bill very simply says you don't have to have an excuse to cast an absentee ballot, anybody can request it. Twenty-seven states do it. It's very effective with no problems and again, registered voters should be allowed to vote. So, I would encourage you to vote against the majority report so that we can allow more New Hampshire citizens to obtain absentee ballots in legal and appropriate ways. Thank you.

Speaker JasperThe Chair recognizes the member from Manchester, Rep. Vaillancourt, to speak in favor of the committee report.

Rep. Steve Vaillancourt (R - Hills 15)Thank you, Mister Speaker. As many of you might recall, in my previous incarnation I used to study voter trends, election results and things like that. One of the things I studied very closely was same-day voting. Make no mistake about it; this bill is a stalking horse for early voting as opposed to same-day voting. If you can get an absentee ballot for any reason, you can vote early, you can. You can vote a month before the election if you so choose. I've always been against early voting so when I say this bill.... I went to the Election Law Committee and when I saw the blurb, I asked if I could speak with you. Not only is this bill a stalking horse for early voting, it's early voting of the worst kind because every political scientist will acknowledge, and I'm not one of these people that believes in fraud with busloads coming up or anything like that, but every political scientist will acknowledge that the most voter fraud comes from absentee ballots. So, this bill would not only allow people to vote early, it would be an encouragement for voter fraud. Now, you may not believe me, so let me tell you one little story before I delve into some statistics. I went to talk with the Secretary of State and the Deputy Secretary of State and one of them told me a little story about one person this election who has been convicted of voter fraud. It was a person who voted absentee ballot for her husband. You might say, what's the matter with that? Well, the point is her husband was dead and if had not been allowed to vote early, or she vote early for him, he would not have been able to commit fraud so there is no doubt in my mind that voting by absentee ballot is an inducement to fraud. You've already heard the reasons for absentee voting that currently exist. I was trying to think if I ever had voted absentee and way back in my memory bank I remember living in Berlin, Germany in 1992 and I had no trouble getting an absentee ballot in Germany. Now, I was amused by the blurb that says, "Democracy isn't cheap, it's expensive and worth it." It's almost like they're bragging that we can spend more money, but the point is we should spend more money only on things that do good. Early voting and an increase in absentee voting has been proven to do more harm than good so why would we want to throw more money at something that is bad? The Boston Globe reported, the writers name was Jeff Jacoby, "The transformation of Election Day into election month has proven one of the less successful democratic experiments." I say to you that data backs this up and while I don't want to go on and on, let's talk briefly about three states. You probably all know that Oregon has gone to a system of all mail ballots. You can't vote in person anymore. Oregon used to be way ahead of New Hampshire in terms of voter turnout. Not anymore. New Hampshire is now number two in the country at 71.5% voter turnout for presidential elections. For presidential primary, we had the highest turnout in the country and again without any of this funny stuff with absentee ballots being sent out early and everything. Another state is Maine. Maine used to be number one in many instances and the Secretary himself told me he had noticed a change in Maine in the last couple of elections. Maine is now below us in turnout. So, the Secretary of State told me, I called the Secretary of State in Maine and said, `Have you changed anything?' The Maine Secretary of State said, "Yes, we now have absentee balloting for any reason." Their vote went down. In fact, the National Association of Political Science estimates that 3-4% reduction in voting is the case when you have early voting. Florida is also the same. I followed Florida closely last November. They have a lot of early voting. Their voting has also plummeted. So, was this a good idea I wouldn't mind spending more money on? Democracy need not be expensive. What democracy really requires is commitment on the part of people. The argument that voting is inconvenient is just absurd. Everybody knows when the election is scheduled. The voting polls are open for a large number of hours. Everybody can make way and get to the polls. To say it is inconvenient would be like George Washington said, "You know, crossing the Delaware is a little inconvenient, I realize for you troops, so we are not going to do it" or those people who went ashore on D-Day saying, "No, this is really too inconvenient." If our forefathers and our predecessors fought for democracy instead of throwing money at it, we can at least allow people to vote the day of an election. So, for reasons, and the minority doesn't argue, that the cost would go way up to local cities and towns and that's directly on your property tax bill and for reasons that it does not help, it hurts, I ask you to vote against this experiment in early voting under the name of absentee balloting. Thank you.