New Hampshire College Democrats President Adam Patinkin '07, outgoing Student Body President Noah Riner '06 and other political and campus leaders from Dartmouth met with New Hampshire Governor John Lynch last week in effort to persuade him to veto House Bill 1566. Lynch, a Democrat, vetoed the bill Tuesday, and it now awaits a vote by the New Hampshire General Assembly.
If overridden, which requires a two-thirds majority in the state Senate and House of Representatives, the bill would make establishing domicile in New Hampshire for voting purposes the same as declaring residency for motor vehicle law purposes. People would be required to obtain new vehicle registrations and drivers' licenses and notify the Department of Safety of address changes within 40 days of declaring New Hampshire residency. It costs $50 to obtain a driver's license in New Hampshire.
Current New Hampshire law permits college students to vote either in their home state or in New Hampshire by establishing domicile. HB 1566 would require students who vote in New Hampshire to present their New Hampshire drivers' licenses and sign affidavits claiming sole residency in New Hampshire and vowing not to vote in another state.
Three Dartmouth students, Lee Cooper '09, Neil Kandler '09 and Karan Danthi '07, wrote a resolution for Student Assembly which opposed HB 1566 and was later approved and sent to all 400 state representatives and 24 state senators last week.
In addition to Riner and Patinkin, other student political and campus leaders from Dartmouth and the University of New Hampshire met with Lynch last week to discuss student views on the bill and how it would affect students' political participation.
Students present at the meeting explained to the governor that many college students consider New Hampshire their home and are extensively involved in their communities here through service and other activities. They emphasized the difficulties that students who seek to vote in their college communities would face, according to Riner.
Because college students were not invited to the committee hearings prior to the bill's passing in both houses, some students believe that state political leaders may not have realized the extent of the burden the law would place on college students and that students would respond negatively to its passing. Both the Young Democrats and College Republicans at Dartmouth and the University of New Hampshire oppose the bill, contending that New Hampshire students should be allowed to vote here.
"We need to focus not on partisan stuff -- this is an issue about rights," Patinkin said, adding that he hopes the legislature will look at the issue a bit differently in light of the students' actions and governor's veto.
Lynch said that he could not support HB 1566 because the bill would be an undue barrier for young voters and new residents seeking to exercise their constitutional right to vote.
"We need to encourage all New Hampshire citizens to vote and to participate fully in our democracy. We also need to ensure that our election laws do not unfairly burden those voters that have recently established a domicile in New Hampshire and are qualified to vote in this state," Lynch said in a press release Tuesday.
The governor acknowledged that HB 1566 would prohibit otherwise qualified citizens from registering to vote if they had a registered motor vehicle in another state or possessed a driver's license issued by another state.
"I cannot support a bill that will disenfranchise New Hampshire voters through amendments to motor vehicle registration laws," he said.
Rep. Bernard Benn, a Democrat, explained that the bill attacks college towns such as Hanover, Durham and Keene, and that most supporters of the bill believe that the majority of college students are Democrats, which is not necessarily true.
"In principle what's happened is these votes are largely votes on party lines. They are definitely votes to intimidate students and keep them from voting," Benn said of his colleagues in the state house and members of the state senate.
While state Republicans say that the bill would safeguard against voter fraud, New Hampshire is one of the cleanest states in terms of voter fraud cases, with most of the cases due to mistakes or accidents, according to Benn.
"The hidden agenda, which is not so hidden, is that they're really trying to suppress the Democratic vote," Benn said.
Although the bill saw a 16 to 7 vote supporting it in the Senate, it passed by a margin of 184 to 136 in the House. Both Benn and Patinkin believe that the House vote will not shift enough from the additional votes to override Lynch's veto. The vote is set to take place in June, when lawmakers will reexamine all of Lynch's vetoes on a single day. Approximately 100 representatives did not vote the first time around, which makes it especially difficult to predict what the outcome will be in the House. The bill, if passed, would not only affect college students, but other populations such as new residents and those who own additional homes and vehicles in other states.
