Domicile, Domicile, where for art thou Domicile? Or perhaps, ” A transient Domicile by any other name would be as….whatever.” If you are an out of state college student where you live doesn’t matter, so where you vote does not matter either, and when I say doesn’t matter, I mean it doesn’t matter where in New Hampshire.
Case in point. The ACLU and League of Women Voters petition, the one that Judge John Lewis more or less just signed off on in the blink of an eye, lists the first petitioner as Hannah Rivers. On the petition she lists her ‘residence’ as Durham New Hampshire. But she hails from Raymond Nebraska, has a drivers license issued by the state of Nebraska and, presumably, wants to vote in Durham in November.
Question: So can out of state students just pick and choose which towns or cities they can vote in, based–presumably–on wherever the Democrat party or their liberal professors, need a ballot box stuffed?
[Update: Edited to affect the relevance of my source information and my source.]
Petitioner Hannah Rivers lives at 83 Main Street, GSS Box 12764, Durham, New Hampshire. She is 19 years of age and is a citizen of the United States. In August 2011, she came from 585 West Waverly Road, Raymond,Nebraska, to New Hampshire, in order to attend school at the University of New Hampshire. She expects to finish school in May of 2015 and currently intends to leave New Hampshire after graduation. She is licensed to drive in Nebraska. (See appendix A-1 for sworn affidavit). She intends to vote in New Hampshire in the upcoming general election.
So what we might have here is a potential roving band of hundreds (potentially thousands) of out of state ballot box stuffers who could be deployed wherever the votes are needed to tip an issue, candidate, warrant, or other measure one way or the other. What’s to stop them form voting in any precinct in the state? They don’t live here, but they get to vote here, anywhere they can claim be on election day. There is nothing specific in law again (thanks to Judge Lewis) that ties them to anywhere in particular. They are electoral transients whose polling place is wherever they can hang their hat come election day. So do these out of state ‘students’ have rights that actual New Hampshire residents do not? Has the court given them even more power than you, the taxpayers, who are limited by your commitment to domicile and all the laws pertaining to it? You can’t go vote in Manchester if that’s where it really matters unless you live there…but they can, if they really wanted to.
Here’s another question. Did Hannah know in advance that her so-called domicile rights were never really protected? That this is just a game and she is just a pawn?
As I have previously pointed out the ‘suspension’ of NH Law will never stand up to scrutiny because the US Supreme court has already ruled on the matter when it upheld the Indiana Voter ID law requirements for issues of domicile. The Anti ID Obama DOJ even pre-cleared the NH law, likley aware of that ruling and the flexibilities built into the NH Law. Judge Lewis presumably knew this as well but chose to force the Secretary of State, who had no interest in defending the domicile requirements either, to change the domicile affidavit back to it’s pointless and impotent former self.
So the left leaning judge, the left leaning secretary of state, the left leaning college students, left leaning ACLU and League of women voters, all on the same side of the issue, just mandated the return of Democrat legislated out of state influence on local elections, by persons with no plans to ever live here, while giving them the ability to vote on our State constitutional amendments.
I think it is also quite clear that this is an effort to tip local elections, local issues, and to give Democrats up and down the ticket a little lift, and to help Mr. Obama with as many extra votes as can be managed in an effort to win a crucial swing state.
Odds are that by the time the Lewis decision is vacated November will be in the rear view mirror and the votes will have already been stolen.
There is also, of course, Question 2 on the November Ballot. A constitutional amendment before the residents of the state, that might be of particular interest to activist judges like Judge Lewis. At present, Judge Lewis can use court “rules” established at the will and whim of the unelected judicial branch, to exercise powers not granted them by the peoples legislature. Read that one more time; unelected judges currently have the power to write rules with the force of law, like Barons who lord over petty fiefdoms. An apt description of the chaos on New Hampshire’s court system, one of the few things about the state that does not rank particularly well.
Were this amendment to pass, the language in Article 73-a would be returned to its more original constitutional meaning, denying the unelected judges the power to act like elected legislators. If you had not figured it out yet, Democrats like the abuse of power the way it currently stands. And a few thousand votes, cast by “out of state” college students, could be enough to keep the measure from passing.
All in all, Judge Lewis has much to gain from his decision about domicile. Too much, perhaps.
So where does Hannah Rivers Live? It doesn’t matter. As long as she votes here, and votes the right way, or should I say the left way.
