The affidavit process that permits New Hampshire voters to cast ballots without identification on Election Day would be eliminated under a bill sponsored by Republican Rep. Bob Lynn of Windham.
Current state law allows voters to sign a document and still cast a ballot when they appear at the polls but don’t have the required photo ID. People registering to vote for the first time at the polls can also sign an affidavit attesting that they are citizens and can legally vote if they don’t have a document — like a birth certificate or U.S. passport — that proves their citizenship. Lynn’s proposal would do away with the affidavit process in both cases.
"If you want to vote, you provide the documentation,” Lynn, a former chief justice of the New Hampshire Supreme Court, told the House Election Law Committee Tuesday. “You can register on the day of the elections, but if you don't provide the documentation you don’t vote. Simple as that.”
But critics — including several town election officials, the League of Women Voters and other voting rights groups — said the bill, which is identical to a proposal Lynn sponsored last year that failed in the House, wasn’t so simple and would put unnecessary hurdles in front of legitimate voters.
“A small minority do not have all the paperwork. Having the affidavits makes it work,” said Hancock Supervisor of the Checklist Katherine Anderson.
Under this bill, voters would need to be able to show proof at the polls of not simply their identity and domicile status — which can be done with a driver's license — but also also their citizenship, which would require a birth certificate, naturalization papers, or a passport. Several local election officials said voters don’t always carry such official documents to the polls.
”I can tell you, the biggest issue people had was citizenship documentation,” former Newbury Moderator Nancy Marashio told the committee.
Henry Klementowicz of the NH-ACLU, meanwhile, warned lawmakers that passing the bill could run afoul of the Constitution’s equal protection clause. He cited the case Fish v. Schwab, which resulted in a federal ruling that overturned a Kansas law requiring voters to prove their citizenship.
“That struck down a documentary proof of citizenship statute under the 14th Amendment, which would be applicable here,” he said..
Klementowicz also noted that while the bill would bar potential voters from using an affidavit to attest to their ability to cast a ballot, state law would still permit voter challenges to be made by affidavit.
“Basically, what it is saying is we trust the people who are challenging voters more than voters,” he said.
Data the ACLU collected from the New Hampshire Secretary of State showed that 600 voters in New Hampshire relied on affidavits to affirm their identity in the 2020 elections. An additional 800 used affidavits to attest to their citizenship status, while 14 used affidavits to do both. That’s out of more that 790,000 ballots cast in the state that year.
