Last Call For It's About Suppression, Con't

We don't often put New Hampshire in such terms, but it's a Republican-controlled swing state with a history of voter suppression tactics headed by a GOP Governor, Chris Sununu. The state has long been a battleground over the legality of Sununu's major voting suppression law, Senate Bill 3, which was signed into law back in 2017 as one of the NH GOP's first acts. After nearly four years however, the law has just be struck down entirely in a unanimous decision by the state's Supreme Court.

The New Hampshire Supreme Court has struck down in its entirety the 2017 Republican-authored voter registration law known as Senate Bill 3, finding it imposes burdens on voters that are in violation of their rights under the state constitution.

The law created a new process for people to prove that they are residents of New Hampshire if they registered to vote within 30 days of an election or on Election Day without a photo ID.

The state's highest court agreed with a 2020 Superior Court ruling that the new requirements and forms involved in the process are confusing, could deter people from registering and voting and "imposes unreasonable burdens on the right to vote."

“We affirm the trial court’s ruling that SB3 violates Part I, Article 11 of the New Hampshire Constitution,” Associate Justice Patrick Donovan wrote in a unanimous, 4-0 opinion. The constitutional article cited guarantees each "inhabitant" of the state 18 years of age and older an "equal right to vote."

The court concluded that, given the burdens, Senate Bill 3 “must be stricken in its entirety”

Chief Justice Gordon MacDonald, who was attorney general at the time the suit was brought, did not sit on the case. Two of the justices, Donovan and Barbara Hantz-Marconi, are appointees of Gov. Chris Sununu, who signed Republican-authored and Republican-backed bill into law in 2017.

Also concurring were Associate Justices Gary Hicks and James Bassett.

Sununu said in a statement shortly after the ruling was issued:

“It’s disappointing that these commonsense reforms were not supported by our Supreme Court, but we have to respect their decision and I encourage the Legislature to take the court’s opinion into account and continue working to make commonsense reforms to ensure the integrity of New Hampshire’s elections.”

One of the lead attorneys for the plaintiffs in the case, New Hampshire Democratic Party legal counsel William Christie, said: "Today is a great day for voting rights. A unanimous New Hampshire Supreme Court affirmed that the Republican voter suppression law, SB 3, is unconstitutional.

"This is one of the strongest opinions in the country protecting the right to vote," Christie said. "We will continue to fight against any effort to suppress the right to vote in New Hampshire."

 

It doesn't get much more clear-cut than "This law imposes unconstitutional burdens on voters and therefore must be struck down in its entirety" in a unanimous decision, folks. 

It's what Republicans do. They can't win, so they make it harder for them to lose.