9/14/2024

A Tale Of Two States

This is about the contrast between two states, Ohio and New Hampshire, and specifically about how they handle voter registration.

Recently, New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu signed a bill into law that removes exceptions to the state’s voter ID law and adds new requirements for registering to vote.

On Thursday, Gov. Chris Sununu signed a much-debated voting rules bill into law.

House Bill 1569 requires anyone registering to vote in New Hampshire to prove valid citizenship with documents such as a birth certificate, passport, or naturalization papers.

The new law also removes all exceptions to the state's voter ID requirements and eliminates the affidavit ballot system.

That system, signed into law just two years ago, allowed voters without an ID to sign a sworn affidavit affirming their identity. If the voter did not return with proof of identification within seven days, the ballot could be subtracted from the final tally of votes.

The problem with the affidavit system is that too many voters who voted via affidavit didn’t return within the 7 days with proper ID which means the system wasn’t working. Why stay with a system that isn’t working well? Another thing: How did election officials know which votes should be subtracted from the vote tally? No one was able to tell me how that was achieved. As such, the change in the law does away with this flawed system.

Voting rights activists had argued the bill would disenfranchise qualified voters.

"What we have here is a phantom, non-existent problem, which is what this bill is designed to address, and on the flip side, you have legitimate eligible voters who will be adversely impacted," Gilles Bissonnette, legal director of the ACLU of New Hampshire, said.

Bissonnette said the ACLU had not ruled out challenging the law in court.

In a statement, Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen chastised the governor for signing the bill and called the law "un-American."

These are the same people who support out-of-state college students voting in New Hampshire elections even though they aren’t residents, using the “You can’t deny their rights to vote” excuse to allow such an illegal action. No one’s right to vote was being denied. They had every right to vote...in their home state via absentee ballot, just like anyone else. As best I know New Hampshire is the only state that allows non-resident college students to vote in such a manner.

And then there’s Ohio.

Ohio’s problem is different, in this case Haitian refugees registering to vote in the town of Springfield. How is it non-citizens are registering to vote?

Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose warned election boards to be extra vigilant in the weeks before the November election after an investigation uncovered illegal voter registration forms circulating in Clark County.

In a media advisory, the secretary of state's office noted, "The office’s Election Integrity Unit recently concluded an investigation into the origins of an illegal voter registration form translated into the Haitian Creole language. The Clark County Board of Elections reported this form to our office after rejecting its submission by a local applicant." According to the Public Integrity Division, the form had a name written on it but nothing else. Under Ohio law, anyone who commits election falsification is guilty of a fifth-degree felony.

--snip--

Clark County is home to Springfield, Ohio, where as many as 30,000 Haitians have unexpectedly migrated—most of them semi-legally after the Biden-Harris administration extended Temporary Protected Status to 300,000 Haitian migrants in June.

The mass migration to Springfield has taxed hospitals, schools, and social services as the population went from around 60,000 to more than 80,000 overnight.

LaRose's press release noted an ongoing investigation into "evidence of a pattern of fraudulent voter registration activity in multiple counties under the paid employment of a group called Black Fork Strategies."

Apparently Black Fork Strategies has a history of fraudulent voting activities.
It is described as “an Ohio based progressive organization that touts itself as ‘Building Long-Term Progressive Power’.” Gee, I wonder just who they might be supporting in the upcoming elections in November?
Last month the Ohio Secretary of State’s office ”referred a number of election fraud cases involving Black Fork for prosecution.” Why doesn’t that surprise me?

One state is clamping down to make it more difficult to commit voting fraud while the other is having problems with fraudulent voter registrations that involve a Progressive organization that seems to have no problem with ensuring Progressive power...even if they have to cheat to do it. (Sound familiar?)

And so it goes.