Governor Sununu was serving the best interests of New Hampshire by vetoing the “no-excuse” absentee ballot law passed by the General Court on a mostly partisan (Democrat) basis.
Absentee ballot fraud is endemic in our country, but never more so than in states with no-excuse absentee ballot laws.
As a former resident of Florida for many years, a state with such a law, this writer can state with some authority that it was common knowledge that many voters, whether living in nursing homes or not, often had their absentee ballots completed by political operatives supposedly “assisting” the voters, with the political operatives then “harvesting” the absentee ballots.
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Our election officials have no way to know who actually completes an absentee ballot, thus making votes cast by absentee ballots easily open to questions.
When a voter must physically come to the polls, present a valid photo identification and call out their name to the clerks, as now required by state law in New Hampshire (which is opposed by the Democrats in our state), the possibilities for voter fraud are significantly reduced.
It would be nice if more of the New Hampshire voters who choose to go to warmer climates during the Winter election season requested, obtained, completed and returned absentee ballots. It is a fairly easy process to be able to receive an absentee ballot and vote by means of it. But the mere fact that many people do not use the existing absentee ballot provisions of our laws should not justify opening the floodgates to potential abuse.
Our existing election laws are wacky enough: Same day registration allowed, college students who do not live permanently in the state allowed to vote rather than in the states in which they permanently reside (by absentee ballots), and open primaries in which the candidates selected to run in the next general election under the banner of a political party are chosen by voters registered not only in that particular party but also those who are registered in another party or unregistered in any party.
The first two of these terrible conditions can only be changed by new legislation, while the last one can be changed simply by the adoption of a rule closing the primaries adopted by a relevant political party. But the Republican Party in New Hampshire has failed and refused to make this change although it has been proposed (by this writer) for the last few years.
But for now, we can only do what we can do, and in the coming week, the Governor’s veto of no-excuse absentee ballots should be upheld.
