The New Hampshire House of Representatives voted down House Bill 176 which would prevent students from voting in state or local elections on Tuesday, according to State Rep. David Pierce, D-Grafton. The House vote followed the Election Law Committee's recommendation last Wednesday not to pass the bill.
The bill, which failed in the House 267 to 72, attempts to redefine residency for voting eligibility in order to return to the "basic principles of ensuring residency" and protect the "integrity of the ballot process," according to a statement that New Hampshire Speaker of the House William O'Brien, R-Hillsborough, previously released to The Dartmouth.
The House vote effectively kills the bill, but the issue of the domicile status of college students is likely to come up again in future legislative sessions, Pierce said.
Representatives from College political groups said in interviews with The Dartmouth that they will continue to fight legislation preventing students from voting in New Hampshire if the issue comes up again in the future.
"I think that throughout the committee debate, the committee realized that this bill was a little too strong," New Hampshire College Democrats President Jeremy Kaufmann '12 said. "I think that legislators are going to continue to think about how to ensure that voters are really representing the interests of the state."
College groups including the College Democrats, College Republicans, College Libertarians and Student Assembly openly opposed the legislation along with nationally-recognized student voting organizations. The College Democrats created and circulated a petition against the bill throughout various New Hampshire college campuses on Feb. 14, The Dartmouth previously reported.
Dartmouth College Libertarians President Joshua Schiefelbein '14 said that if a similar bill is proposed, the College Libertarians will continue to use the same methods to get support from different groups to defeat the bill. Future plans include voter rallies, petitions, testifying in Concord and talking to individual House representatives in the Election Law Committee, Schiefelbein said.
