by Ed Naile
NH Secretary of State Bill Gardner says that the court ruling was based on a likely misinterpretation of the requirements of the new voter ID law.
Gardner says he’s troubled by the prospect of adding to his website the section saying college students don’t have to get driver’s licenses or register their vehicles here.
“With just over five weeks to go before the presidential election, Secretary of State William Gardner says he’ll wait until Monday to decide whether to fully implement a court order he says misinterprets the state’s voter registration requirements.”
Gardner wary of court ruling on voter ID law
Today’s update tells us that although he opposes the order he is posting it for now.
A motion to intervene was filed by Ed Naile on behalf of Coalition of NH Taxpayers in the ACLU Lawsuit that was filed on behalf of four students against the new Voter ID act. CNHT has been the group that has been at the forefront of fighting voter fraud, having collected data as well as taken in complaints sent by those wronged, for the last 10 years.
The main gist of the motion is here:
1. The Coalition of NH Taxpayers (CNHT) began a program of documenting voter fraud and election law violations in September of 2000 and has a vested interest in the purity of NH elections at all levels. We feel that the Court should have some of the materials we have collected in order to fairly rule on the effect of the recently adopted voter identification legislation.
2. It is the fact that NH has same day registration laws, RSA 654:7, which, previous to the recent change in statute at issue here, allowed anyone with limited identification, such as an electric company bill, to register to vote and remain on the legitimate voter checklist until the next voter purge which happens every ten years.
3. CNHT found in its initial investigation that after the purge of the checklist in the Town of Deerfield in 2000, approximately two dozen people registered and voted, same-day, in the November 1996 election, using the identical address of 159 Bear Brook Road. CNHT collected, under RSA 91-A, copies of the envelopes returned to the Deerfield Supervisors of the Checklist from 2000 and the same day 1996 registration cards of the voters. (Exhibits A-B)
4. There is no such road as Bear Brook Rd. in Deerfield and never was. This shows how easily non-residents can register and vote in NH, then have their name appear on the checklist until such time it is purged or removed.
5. In 2001 the NH Legislature formed a joint House, Senate committee to address claims of voter fraud and the NH Attorney General’s Office was tasked with the investigation. CNHT acquired a copy of this investigation and offer two sample letters (Exhibits C-D) from UNH students, not domiciled in Durham or NH, who registered same day for the November 2000 election in NH and wrote to the Durham Supervisors of the Checklist immediately afterward and asked to be taken off the checklist. This was a common practice at the time.
6. Exhibit E is a spread sheet showing the day same day some voters registered for the above mentioned 2000 election and the day they contacted Durham officials to be removed, within a few days or weeks, which clearly shows an intent to game New Hampshire’s permissive election laws for an opportunity to choose a NH election as opposed to the municipality or state in which they were legally domiciled, thereby nullifying a domiciled NH resident’s vote.
7. In the November, 2005 Manchester election a transient, professional, campaign worker from South Dakota named Geoff Wetrosky claimed a single family, residential home on 192 South Mammoth Rd. in Manchester, owned by the then Democrat Party Chair, Cathy Sullivan, as his legal domicile and voted in Manchester (Exhibit F).
8. When confronted by Manchester Police at the Mammoth Rd. home after being caught stealing candidate and Republican Party signs around the City of Manchester, Wetrosky told police he was leaving NH and was just working on a campaign. He went to work on a different campaign soon after in Massachusetts as he told police.
9. Mr. Wetrosky was a professional campaign worker with an extensive background of working in different states and had no intention staying in NH and becoming domiciled here, nor could he possibly provide a rent receipt or utility bill from the Sullivan home, yet he easily registered to vote in November 2005, and his name appeared on the checklist as a valid voter until at least May of 2006 (Exhibit E), and it is assumed it stayed there until the purge in 2010.
10. CNHT has documentation from years of matching arrest records with voter checklists in college towns showing former NH voters using out of state drivers licenses as their legal domicile after their arrest, the same license they used as identification to vote in NH. This, in effect, creates a second class of NH voter, one who holds a drivers license, and right to vote and hold office, from another state where they have sworn to licensing officials they are a resident, and a NH voter who is less likely to be called for NH jury duty, for lack of a NH drivers license, but who can still vote or run for office in our state.
11. The NH Constitution Art. 11 states in the first sentence that:
[Art.] 11. [Elections and Elective Franchises.] All elections are to be free, and every inhabitant of the state of 18 years of age and upwards shall have an equal right to vote in any election. Every person shall be considered an inhabitant for the purposes of voting in the town, ward, or unincorporated place where he has his domicile.
12. Domicile, as expressed in the NH Constitution, is a statement of fact, not an intention or promise to remain, though this requirement is often looked at as some sort of state of mind, domicile is easy to establish and prove. There may be from time to time a person who is in transition between domiciles but wholesale intent by people who want to vote where they may get an opportunity to cast a more meaningful vote than their legally domiciled state or town creates distrust, as well as two different classes of voter, in our elections in NH and in some cases may alter the outcome.
13. Voter identification with something as simple and as readily available as photo ID is more in line with our NH Constitution as well as the US Constitution’s 14th Amendment:
1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
14. Without strict enforcement of clearly written statutes and easily available identification to vote in New Hampshire our state will continue to have a special class of voter who can pick and choose at will where he or she wants to vote without becoming a legally domiciled resident subject to the same laws as those who pay taxes, meet license requirements, serve on juries, and follow the law.
15. May the Court take notice that the four plaintiffs in this case, who claim to be out of state licensed students, have ample time to vote by absentee ballot in their home states and are not hindered in any way from voting legally through that established process.
16. The so-called “mobile domiciliarie” Plaintiffs, as described by themselves in this case, are easily able to become legally domiciled in NH by switching their domicile to NH and abandoning their current out of state domiciles.
Wherefore the Petitioner prays the Honorable Court:
a. Grant this Motion to Intervene.
b. Hold a hearing to review other CNHT documentation of election law violations and abuse.
c. Take these exhibits into consideration regarding any Order.
d. Any other action the Court deems just and fair.
N.H. AG to appeal judge’s order on out-of-state student voting
“The New Hampshire attorney general will appeal a Strafford County Superior Court ruling Monday that put on hold a new voter registration law that opponents claimed would disenfranchise nonresident college students.”
The importance of the voter ID issue came to a head after James O’Keefe of Project Veritas made videos demonstrating how some types of voter fraud could be accomplished in NH very easily. The NH Attorney General then tried to serve O’Keefe with an arrest warrant, even though O’Keefe didn’t actually take or cast any ballot, and despite the fact that no one else was ever prosecuted in this state for actually perpetrating the same kind of fraud in the past.
Ed recently gave an interview to Granite Grok on his motion for intervention
UPDATE: There is a hearing on October 4 at 1:00 PM at the Strafford County Superior Court.
CNHT is on the docket.