Constitutional Question #1 on New Hampshire’s November 8 general election ballot is simple housekeeping to eliminate an obsolete position.
Stories of problems with the Register of Probate system are fairly well known. It has been reported that a lady was elected and re-elected as the Register of Probate in one of our counties, although she was confined to a residence in a nursing home at the time. And it has also been reported that at least one part-time probate judge, supposedly overseen by the Register of Probate, looted some estates within his purview and, when about to be caught, fled the jurisdiction to avoid prosecution.
Although the Register of Probate may have originally been designed to exercise some oversight over our probate judges, the state courts were reorganized in 2011, and substantially all duties of the Registers of Probate were transferred to the clerks of the circuit court in its newly created probate division, saving the taxpayers an estimated $1 Million per year.
The only remaining duty of the Register of Probate is to make sure that documentation of probate matters with potential historical significance are preserved in the state’s archives- but that function is actually already handled by the clerks in the probate division of the circuit courts.
So, at the present time, the Register of Probate position is an anachronism- the holder of that office, who is elected for a 2-year term, is paid $100 per year but has no physical office, no staff, no telephone, and, in short, absolutely no duties.
The adoption of this constitutional amendment is supported by the judiciary and is long overdue.
The constitutional office of Register of Probate has become obsolete, and references to it should be removed from the cherished document that determines the structure and operation of the government of our state. Constitutional Question #1 would accomplish this.
A “Yes” vote on the question is long overdue.
Editors note: Norm Silber is the prime sponsor of the Amendment.