Biden campaign backs lawsuit against 'chilling' law that could disenfranchise 'thousands' of voters

22 December 2023

President Joe Biden's reelection campaign has joined a lawsuit seeking to halt a law in a battleground state that could disqualify thousands of ballots in 2024.

Politico reported Friday that the Democratic National Committee (DNC) is challenging a law New Hampshire's Republican-controlled legislature passed last year that requires voters who registered to vote on Election Day (which requires the signing of an affidavit attesting that they are a resident of New Hampshire) to produce a photo ID within seven days of registration, or else their votes would be tossed out. Senate Bill 418 stipulates that in addition to rejecting ballots, those voters' names would be referred to the New Hampshire Attorney General's office for investigation.

"President Biden and Vice President Harris believe that we should be making it easier, not harder, for every eligible American voter to participate in our democracy. New Hampshire’s law flies in the face of that belief, and is a chilling and unacceptable embrace of the election fraud hysteria championed by Donald Trump," Biden campaign manager Julie Chávez Rodriguez told Politico. "In an election that could very well determine the fate of our democracy, it is our imperative to fight for the right to vote. This is just the beginning."

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According to Politico, there were approximately 75,000 new voters who registered on Election Day 2020, though data on how many of those new voters had photo ID is unavailable. However, Biden won the Granite State by less than 70,000 votes in 2020, meaning the law has the potential to swing election results.

Even though New Hampshire has a Republican trifecta government (with the GOP in control of both chambers of the legislature as well as the governor's mansion) its representatives in the House of Representatives and US Senate are all Democrats, meaning the Granite State's four Electoral college votes are not guaranteed to either party. Having the challenge answered by the February 2024 primary is unlikely, but the Biden campaign aims to have the issue litigated in advance of the 2024 general election in November.

This marks the second such DNC lawsuit challenging a state's election laws, following an October challenge to North Carolina's Senate bill 747, which has similar provisions governing same-day voter registration and photo ID requirements. Democratic governor Roy Cooper vetoed the bill, but the GOP-dominated legislature overrode Cooper's veto. The DNC filed the lawsuit shortly after the law took effect.

SB 418 has been previously challenged by the New Hampshire American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which called the law "unconstitutional," saying it would "diminish the secrecy of ballots and tie voter’s names to the candidates and issues for which they voted on their ballot." The suit was ultimately dismissed for a lack of standing.

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