"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less."
The New Hampshire House leadership hasn't given up on its goal of winning elections through voter suppression. Instead of trying to win by promoting legislation that would improve the lives of every citizen in New Hampshire, they are back to trying to prevent thousands of citizens from registering to vote or getting a ballot to vote on Election Day.
Next Tuesday, Jan. 31, the House Election Law Committee will take a vote on a bill (HB 1354) that would change the definition of who lives in New Hampshire for voting purposes. Our state Constitution says a person must be domiciled here in order to vote here, and our current law defines domicile so that every citizen in New Hampshire will be treated equally when registering to vote.
The definition we use for voting purposes makes it clear that a citizen must be living in New Hampshire and not just visiting or vacationing here. A person may have many houses but only one place can be claimed as a domicile for voting purposes. That is the place where a person spends most of the time, conducts business, social, cultural and civic affairs, and it is the place a person returns to after visiting or vacationing elsewhere.
HB 1354 says that the word domicile is no different than domicile or residence as it's used in 650 other laws in New Hampshire. Those hundreds of other laws, however, deal with things like taxes, land use, commercial transactions, inheritances, etc., etc. HB 1354 completely ignores the fact that voting is our most fundamental Constitutional right and relegates it to the same status as a real estate transaction.
The purpose of HB 1354 is clear. The sponsors want to confuse the issue of who can vote in New Hampshire and allow any of the 650 other laws that deal with domicile and resident to be applied to college students who try to register to vote. The reality, of course, is that other people like minorities, the poor or young people in general will also be targets of those who have their own biases and prejudices.
New Hampshire, like a number of other states, has wisely used one common, consistent and unambiguous definition of domicile for voting purposes to prevent confusion for both citizens trying to register to vote and for local election officials.
The Election Law Committee votes on Tuesday, Jan. 31. Please let them know you think they should reject HB 1354. The committee is divided on this issue. Those who oppose HB 1354 (in both parties) need to know they'll have support. Those who are pushing HB 1354 need to know we won't stand for these voter suppression tactics.
The committee's general e-mail address is HouseElectionLawCommittee@leg.state.nh.us
|
