U.S. District Court Strikes Down 2024 New Hampshire Law That Made Voter Registration More Difficult for Some Voters

On May 28, U.S. District Court Judge Samanta Elliott, a Biden appointee, struck down a 2024 New Hampshire law that made it more difficult for some voters to register to vote. New Hampshire Youth Movement v Scanlon, 1:24cv-291. Here is the 98-page decision.

New Hampshire requires proof of citizenship in order to register to vote, but until 3035, an applicant who didn’t have the documents was permitted to satisfy the requirement by certifying under penalty of perjury that the applicant is a citizen. In 2024 that alternative was eliminated. But the decision says that it was a necessary component of the law, and the system is unconstitutional without it.

The decision says that only 6 non-citizen voters voted in New Hampshire between 1998 and 2024. It also outlaines difficulties and costs for individuals born outside New Hampshire to obtain a copy of a birth certificate, and points out tha 80% of women change their surname when they marry.

Dallas Morning Morning News Columnist Condemns Texas Ballot Access Laws

Glenn Rogers, a columnist for the Dallas Morning News, has this column, explaining the Texas ballot access laws for independent candidates and criticizing them.

One point he failed to make is that before 1967, Texas did not require any petition for new or minor parties to get on the ballot. They merely needed to hold a state convention and county conventions in at least twenty counties. Yet Texas did not have crowded ballots before 1967. Texas never had a government-printed general ballot with more than six parties.

Rogers is mistaken to say George Washington hated political parties. Washington criticized “the spirit of party”, i.e., partisanship. Washington was head of the Federalist Party during his administration, but he was careful to have cabinet members from both parties. The chief division between the Federalist Party and the Democratic-Republican Party in the 1790’s was over foreign policy. The Federalist Party was horrified by the French Revolution, but the Democratic-Republican Party was not.