You've heard the claims made by Donald Trump about voter fraud in New Hampshire and Fergis Cullen's challenge to pay $1000 to anyone who can prove voter fraud. Cullen states there is not on jot of evidence such fraud took place.
He's wrong.
Evidence of voter fraud resides in the thousands of affidavits filed by new voters during same day voter registration on election day. However the New Hampshire Attorney General's office hasn't moved to investigate a single one. Not one. So how can anyone say that not a single case of voter fraud was committed during the past couple of elections?
One way to do away with part of the problem is to eliminate same day registration, something authorized by the New Hampshire Legislature back in 2011. The following year over 20,000 affidavits were filed during the 2012 elections, and of those 20,000 plus affidavits, a fifth, or over 4,400 could not be verified. While the claim has been made that even if all 4.400+ ballots cast had gone to one party or the other that it wouldn't have influenced the presidential race, and maybe the congressional races, there were plenty of lower level races that could have been greatly influenced by those fraudulent votes. In the recent election, one of the big race- that between Maggie Hassan and then-incumbent US Senator Kelly Ayotte was decided by a mere 743 votes. It wouldn't have taken too many fraudulent votes to sway that outcome.
One of the biggest problems we have is that New Hampshire's present laws do not prevent out-of-state college students from voting as residents of New Hampshire. Same day voter registration doesn't help that one bit. In fact, it is quite possible for an out-of-state college student to vote here in New Hampshire and their home state by use of an absentee ballot. But the one thing that makes what they're doing questionable is that college dormitories should not be considered legal domiciles, meaning someone living there cannot use it as the basis for claiming residency in the state of New Hampshire. It would not surprise me that in some college towns there are town ordinances that state that to be the case. One has to ask how many of those out-of-state students that register to vote here also have New Hampshire driver licenses? If I had to guess, I'd say very few, if any. If they haven't bothered to get a New Hampshire driver's license after all the time they've been in state, then how can they register to vote? I would be surprised if they would be able to get a drivers license because they don't actually have a legal domicile.
In most towns hotel rooms can't be considered legal domiciles, that's why a lot of out-of-state campaign workers rent rooms at someone's home for the duration of their stay, register to vote on the day of the election using that address as their domicile (this usually happens during the New Hampshire Primary), then moving on to the next state the day after the election is over. In some cases that means a campaign worker may be able to vote in more than one primary during the primary season. Think it can't happen? You'd be wrong as there have been more than a few examples of multiple campaign workers for a candidate using the same address as their legal domicile even if they aren't actually living there. While this would have little effect on the elections in November, it still skews results during the primaries.
I think it's time that New Hampshire do away with same day registration and put in place some kind of residency requirement that bans out-of-state college students and transient (campaign) workers from being able to register to vote in New Hampshire elections, be they local, state, or federal contests because they aren't really residents.
It's but one small step, but we have to start somewhere.
