Voter Suppression House Vote Tomorrow

Photo ID (0.00 / 0)

I wonder how the free staters and GOPers would react to a photo id firearms owners card?

With out the card you cannot own a fire arm!

The same thing as with out a photo id card you can not vote

I think there is almost no voter fraud----and no one dies from voter fraud------SEEMS TO ME WE NEED PHOTO ID FOR FIRE ARMS OWNERSHIP NOW!

But I suppose we would be labeled haters of the CONSTITUTION........just like them!

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by: tchair @ Tue May 31, 2011 at 20:46:35 PM UTC

The bill "grandfathers" the Republican presidential primary. (4.00 / 2)

It doesn't take effect until Nov. 2012.

If there really is a problem, why is that acceptable?

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by: elwood @ Tue May 31, 2011 at 21:28:50 PM UTC

It skips the Sept primary too (4.00 / 1)

Good point. I read the Oct implementation date as blatantly partisan. They make it easy for Republican voters in the presidential primary, and then they don't allow the Sept primary to be a dry run for town clerks so that on election day in Nov 2012 there are long lines and lots of confusion = decreased turn-out = bad for Democrats.

Political Campaign Manager at Democracy for America

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by: Kaili Lambe @ Tue May 31, 2011 at 22:41:51 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

NH League of Women Voters and America Votes sent this fiscal note for SB129 (4.00 / 4)

This was sent as an email message to legislators this evening:

Fiscal Notes for SB129

State Costs

Five year new costs for the state are $2,565,320 not including city and town costs or inflation and assuming 50% of voters without photo ID give up voting. (There are estimates of 75% in other states.)

2011 (FY2012) -- $19,000 for Secretary of State database and DMV reprogramming

Secretary of State waivers, provisional ballot supplies, voter photo IDs and election worker training and public education for:

2012 (FY2013) -- $842,040 for the General Election

2013 (FY 2014) -- $414,080 for city and town elections

2014 (FY2015) -- $876,120 for town elections, primary elections and the General Election

2015 (FY2016) -- $414,080 for city and town elections

The Secretary of State estimates:

$10,000 for a onetime expense to redesign the state's voter registration database to keep track of out-of-state driver license addresses

-$10,000 for each election to hold hearings on waiver requests for voters who do not have photo IDs (1,000 voters per election)

-$7,040 for ballot boxes, seals and envelopes for provisional ballots for each election

-50,000 to 75,000 voters will appear at the polls in primary and general elections without a photo ID that meets the requirements of SB129. This number will stay fairly constant because of the transient nature of the N.H. population.

The DMV testified it will cost $9,000 for a one-time expense for reprogramming for a voter photo ID and the cost of each voter photo ID will be $10.00 ($3.00 for materials and $7.00 for printing, mailing, labor and overhead costs.)

Even if only half the voters without a photo ID apply for a voucher, the costs for each statewide election will be from $250,000 to $325,000. City and town elections are difficult to determine but could reasonably be expected to run $60,000 to $80,000.

Limited hours and locations of DMV offices mean there will need to be weekend openings and expanded hours before and immediately after elections so no one is denied a voter photo ID.

New Boston is a perfect example of what happens when a state doesn't spend an adequate amount of time and money educating its election workers. Unlike many other states, N.H. offers only minimal training for election officials and no state training for ballot clerks and other election workers.

The state spends virtually nothing on public education about voting. With same-day registration and an intense campaign environment, the state has gotten by with leaving it to candidates and campaigns to explain N.H.'s rather straightforward current voting procedures.

States with less radical changes in voting procedures have found adding new information programs is very expensive. Georgia spends $841,000 a year on voter education. It took several tries for Georgia to pass the courts' requirements for public education by mailing voting information to every registered voter and potential voter, running prime time TV ads throughout the year and especially in advance of any election, developing and distributing materials to a wide variety of groups in the state to hand out, and by using all the new media resources to reach different audiences.

Because N.H., although smaller, will start from scratch, similar election worker and voter education will cost $300,000 to $500,000 a year for the first four or five years and only slightly less after that.

City and Town Costs

More than half of the N.H. Town Clerks don't have office hours on at least one of the two-and-a-half days allowed for voters to bring in a photo ID so the ballot can be counted. A person who can only vote because polls are opened before and after normal business hours also would need expanded Town Clerk hours. SB129 doesn't include funding for extra days and expanded hours for Town Clerks.

Town Clerks, Moderators and other election workers who don't work on Fridays will need to be paid for extra hours. It takes as many people to count and certify provisional ballots as regular ballots on Election Day because the legal requirements are the same.

SB129 also means candidates won't know the outcome of the election until just hours before the recount deadline. If there are challenges, the outcome could easily be delayed for weeks or months.

SB129 is based on Indiana's recently enacted photo ID bill. Indiana limits its polling places by law to no more than 1,200 registered voters. Of N.H.'s 330 polling places, 238 have between 1,200 and 5,000 registered voters, 44 have between 5,000 and 10,000 , and 9 have between 10,000 and 20,000.

The extra time needed for two ballot clerks to inspect a photo ID, write down any out-of-state addresses, help a voter fill out a provisional ballot affidavit and seal up the provisional ballot, and deal with questions about and objections to the new voting procedures will easily double the time it takes for Ballot Clerks to process all voters. This will mean doubling the number of election workers at almost every polling place in the state for almost every election.

Passing these costs onto cities and towns would be an unfunded mandate under Section 28.

Sources:

Secretary of State Bill Gardner and the Secretary's website, Joseph Williams of the NH Department of Motor Vehicles and the DMV website, U.S. Department of Transportation, U.S. Census, Testimony at the House Election Law Committee, the Senate Municipal and Public Affairs Committee and the House Finance Committee

General information from discussions with and review of publications prepared by:

Fair Elections Legal Network, Brennan Center for Justice, NYU School of Law, Demos.org, NAACP, Rock the Vote, Lawyer's Committee for Civil Rights under the Law, People for the American Way, Project Vote, LWVUS, ACLU

Prepared by

Joan Flood Ashwell, Election Law Specialist, League of Women Voters N.H. 603-868-3775;

Melissa Bernardin, America Votes 603-225-1932

You have not converted a man because you have silenced him.  (John Morley, 1838-1923)

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by: Marjorie Porter @ Wed Jun 01, 2011 at 00:39:30 AM UTC

Will these organizations (0.00 / 0)

Fair Elections Legal Network, Brennan Center for Justice, NYU School of Law, Demos.org, NAACP, Rock the Vote, Lawyer's Committee for Civil Rights under the Law, People for the American Way, Project Vote, LWVUS, ACLU

challenge this if it passes and the governor does not veto it?

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by: mevansnh @ Wed Jun 01, 2011 at 09:51:11 AM UTC

challenge (0.00 / 0)

The challenge has to come from a state organization - or an individual. Those are national organizations.

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by: calvin @ Wed Jun 01, 2011 at 10:35:01 AM UTC

[ Parent ]