NH Democrats: Requiring Proof Of Citizenship To Vote Is 'Anti-American'

By Michael Graham, NH Journal

U.S. Senator Jeanne Shaheen says New Hampshire’s new voting law is “anti-American,” and the chairman of her state Democratic Party says requiring all voters to show an ID to vote is “cheating.”

Those are just some of the negative reactions to Gov. Chris Sununu’s decision to sign HB 1569, which removes any exceptions for proving voter identification, including the use of self-attesting voter affidavits as proof of identification. Under the current system, voters without identification could sign a statement claiming to be an eligible voter. If the voter did not provide evidence of his or her identity within seven days, their vote would be removed from the total.

The new law also requires people registering to vote for the first time to provide proof of citizenship, such as a birth certificate, passport or naturalization documents. Democrats claim some Granite State voters will not be able to access any of these documents and will be disenfranchised.

Polls show voters overwhelmingly support voter ID requirements, but Democrats at the state and federal levels have fought against them. All four members of New Hampshire’s federal delegation support a bill in Congress to ban states from mandating voter ID, and every Democrat in the state legislature opposed HB 1569.

When he signed the bill, Republican Gov. Chris Sununu called it part of a “proud tradition and proven track record of conducting elections that are trusted and true. Looking forward to the next decade or two, this legislation will instill even more integrity and trust in the voting process.”

Granite State Democrats disagreed.

“Discouraging participation in our democracy is as anti-American as it gets,” said Shaheen.

“Republicans can’t win without cheating,” added New Hampshire Democratic Party chair Ray Buckley.

The leftwing organization New Hampshire Campaign for Voting Rights called requiring proof of citizenship to register or proof of identity to vote “extreme.”

“This extreme legislation signed by the Governor will roll back voting access for all eligible Granite Staters. Once this law goes into effect later this year, any voter may be turned away from the polls if they did not have the correct documents, creating massive new changes to New Hampshire’s registration system, burdening our election officials, and disenfranchising eligible voters,” said McKenzie Taylor, Campaign Director for the New Hampshire Campaign for Voting Rights.

And when Biden administration staffer Maggie Goodlander filed her documents to become a candidate in the NH-02 Democratic primary, she took time to ask Secretary of State David Scanlan to do what he could to stop HB 1569 from becoming law.

In a video posted by a Democratic Party tracker, Goodlander says, “I really hope you’ll do everything you can to ensure this bill isn’t signed into law, because we’ve got to protect the right to vote.”

She also supports the Democrat-backed federal law overriding New Hampshire’s election rules.

Asked by NHJournal if she believes non-citizens have the “right to vote,” or if people have the right to vote without ever proving their identity or address, Goodlander declined to respond.

The nonpartisan Pew Research Center found that 81 percent of Americans support requiring people to present a government-issued photo ID in order to vote.

This story was originally published by the NH Journal, an online news publication dedicated to providing fair, unbiased reporting on, and analysis of, political news of interest to New Hampshire. For more stories from the NH Journal, visit NHJournal.com.