ELECTION LAW
CORRECTED COMMITTEE REPORT
SB 129-FN, relative to presenting photo identification to vote in person and relative to the election fund. MAJORITY: OUGHT TO PASS WITH AMENDMENT. MINORITY: INEXPEDIENT TO LEGISLATE.
Rep. Kathleen M Hoelzel for the Majority of Election Law: This bill requires a voter to present a valid photo I.D. to the ballot clerk prior to voting. There are provisions in the bill to allow a “provisional ballot” to be submitted if the individual does not have the identification with them. The individual would need to present the valid photo I.D. within three days of the election in order that the provisional ballot be counted. There are also provisions for a voter to obtain a photo I.D. card free of charge if he/she does not have a valid photo I.D. Vote 13-5.
Rep. David M Pierce for the Minority of Election Law: The amendment to this bill passed even though there were substantial questions that were not answered, or even discussed, before the majority moved to call the question so a vote could be taken. The chair did not accept the motion, but the unmistakable import of that move was that the majority of the committee was not going to investigate the issues any further. The few answers the committee did get should have compelled a vote to retain the bill.
Here's what the committee did discuss and learn: The Secretary of State testified extensively about the bill. From that testimony and from his deputy’s testimony before the subcommittee the day before, it was made clear that that the bill’s provisional ballot requirement is unworkable because of New Hampshire’s uniquely short statutory and constitutional timeframes between the state’s primary election and general election and between the general election and the legislative summons. The secretary pointed out that it will also profoundly affect the recount process for the worse by inviting protracted battles over the counting of the provisional ballots. More frightening, though, was the secretary’s sense that the bill actually opens up the system to a new and different types of election fraud instead of combating it. The Secretary of State, the state’s chief election officer, said that if the committee wanted to pass a photo id requirement it would be prudent for it to pass something else and not this legislation. But probably the most disturbing thing that the committee learned was that the provisional ballot is not a secret ballot because it removes safeguards so that it would be easier to see how an individual voter voted.
Here's what the committee did not discuss: The committee never got to a whole host of other questions about the bill. The committee did not discuss whether the bill is constitutional under Part I, Article 11 of the New Hampshire constitution. The committee never even discussed the framework that should be used to analyze its constitutionality. The committee couldn’t answer the question about whether the bill would be subject to the constitution’s rational basis test or to a strict scrutiny analysis. The list of substantial and genuine questions about the bill goes on and on. Here's what the committee should have done:
The bottom line is that the committee should have retained the bill. It should have honored its constitutional duty to pass legislation only once it satisfied itself that the bill is itself constitutional and that all relevant questions were asked, answered and adequately addressed. What the committee passed on to the House falls far below the high standards that the House Election Law Committee usually sets for itself and is not yet worthy of the House’s consideration. The right to vote is the most fundamental right we have to keep government in its place. We ought to know what we’re doing before we reform it in such a profound and fundamental way.
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