New Hampshire is moving forward with a federal requirement that requires every state to create a computerized record for every voter.
The resulting data base was mandated under HAVA, the Federal Help America Vote Act of 2002.
That effort has the support of many local officials and political party leaders, but some critics worry about protecting their privacy.
New Hampshire Public Radio's David Darman has more.
A centralized voter data base would be a big change for traditional New Hampshire voter files.
Up till now, they've only been maintained at the local level.
But Deputy Secretary of State Dave Scanlon assures voters that they won't notice HAVA when they vote, because it won't change in how they cast their ballots.
that process is going to stay the same. in other words the local supervisors of the checklist are going to be the ones that make the decision whether the person goes on the checklist or comes off the checklist for various reasons. the difference is going to be that all that information is going to be housed at the state level. and the process by which the names get put on and taken off and maintained are going to be uniform. so the procedures in all the cities and the towns is basically going to be the same.
Many cities and towns in the state already keep computerized voter records.
For them, sharing data with the state may be a simple change.
But a few small towns still keep records by hand.
In Lyndeborough, town officials have been considering new software to keep track of about 1200 voters.
Neal Cass is the town's administrative assistant.
He says he thinks the statewide database would be a good thing.
it might actually help because it means we don't have to go out and get the software to enter all the information into as we upgrade. this will be provided by the state and it doesn't look to me like it will increase the data entry time and should help to improve our accuracy.
New Hampshire Republicans say they think the database would have another important benefit.
They worry that in past elections, a few voters may have been able to bypass controls and vote more than once.
They say this kind of fraud could be perpetrated across town or state lines, and local governments could do little about it.
Warren Henderson is chairman of New Hampshire's Republican State Committee.
He says such fraud would be difficult to pull off once HAVA is in effect.
under this system all this information will be collected by the state, and it'll be much harder, in case people want to vote in more than one place to do so, because the system will...tend to ...more readily detect such things.
Republicans and Democrats have even more reasons to like the HAVA database.
If the legislature approves, the parties and their candidates will be able to purchase copies of each voter record, and use them for political purposes.
That would greatly simplify the task of assembling statewide voter lists, since at present, such lists have to be cobbled together from names gathered from all 234 towns.
But while the parties may like it, not all elected officials do.
Republican Representative Neal Kurk of Weare is a staunch advocate of privacy rights.
He worries the dissemination of a statewide voter list won't stop with candidates.
He says the state Legislature is poised to allow interest groups the opportunity to purchase the list.
And he says he's sure commercial interests will also want access.
first, they're waiting for the door to be cracked open by the political parties, and then opened a little wider by issue advertising. and then, perhaps the marketers will come in and say, well, we would really like a copy of the entire data base so we can sell it, to those people who have issues. and we can slice and dice and sort the database so that if you have a particular public policy issue, instead of buying the whole database, we can give you the list with all the people with the appropriate zip codes, with all the appropriate age or gender characteristics that you're looking for.
Kurk predicts people will eventually get sick of getting mail, phone calls and emails from candidates, political parties, and possibly commercial outfits.
And if they do, they could opt out of registering to vote, further reducing voter turnout.
But Stuart Comstock-Gay of the National Voting Rights Institute in Boston says he doesn't think alienation has to result from a HAVA database.
But he says its right to be concerned about what could happen.
well, i think we should all have some anxiety when more records are created. and i think its why its important for our elected officials to pay attention to what our administrators are doing, and the public to pay attention and make sure that the protections are put in place.
Under federal law, the state has to implement HAVA by 2006.
Two public meetings are planned to discuss the state plan for complying with the law.
The first is being held in Plymouth tonight.
The second is scheduled for next Tuesday in Concord.
