New Hampshire Republicans push voting limitations targeted at college students ‘voting as a liberal’
The New Hampshire House of Representatives is pushing several laws that would impose voter restrictions and limitations, largely targeted at college students.
One such bill, introduced in the House on Jan. 6, would only allow students to vote in their college towns if they or their parents had a previously established permanent residency there. Voters who don’t qualify under this law would be forced to vote in the towns they hale from. Another bill would cease Election Day registration. Both bills are due out of the Election Law Committee on March 10. The House has also introduced a law requiring voter identification, similar to initiatives in North Carolina.
At a recent tea party event in New Hampshire, Republican state House Speaker William O’Brien promoted these bills and their intentions, according to The Washington Post.
O’Brien’s comments -– depicting all young voters as liberals who lack life experience and “just vote their feelings” –- were, according to the Post, taped by a New Hampshire Democratic Party staffer and posted on YouTube, though TAI could not find the video, and, apparently, we are not alone.
In New Hampshire, the measure that covers college students also targets military members temporarily stationed in the state.
From the Washington Post:
“„Backers of the voting measures say they would bring fairness and restore confidence in a voting system vulnerable to fraud. Many states, for instance, do not require identification to vote. Measures being proposed in 32 states would add an ID requirement or proof of citizenship, according to an analysis by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University.
“„“I want to know when I walk into the poll that they know I am who I say I am and that nobody else has said that they are me,” said North Carolina state Rep. Ric Killian (R), who is preparing to introduce legislation that would require voters to show a photo ID at the polls.
“„Democrats charge that the real goal, as with anti-union measures in Wisconsin, Ohio and elsewhere, is simply to deflate the power of core Democratic voting blocs – in this case young people and minorities. For all the allegations of voter fraud, Democrats and voting rights groups say, there is scant evidence to show that it is a problem.
“„“It’s a war on voting,” said Thomas Bates, vice president of Rock the Vote, a youth voter- registration group mounting a campaign to fight the array of state measures. “We’d like to be advocating for a 21st-century voting system, but here we are fighting against efforts to turn it back to the 19th century.”
