Virginia Sapiro: HB 1569 is nothing less than voter suppression

To The Daily Sun,

HB 1569, the new Republican law signed by Gov. Chris Sununu, goes into effect Nov. 11. Supposedly designed to deny ineligible voting (who weren't voting anyway), it eliminates the use of qualified voter affidavits to allow people without documentation of citizenship to vote. The QVAs were sent to the New Hampshire Secretary of State for verification. If the QVA was false, the individual was considered to have committed perjury. But HB 1569 is simply a voter suppression law that will not improve elections, but will keep qualified citizens from voting. In Gilmanton, for example, where I am a supervisor of the checklist, if the new law had been in effect last week we would have had to deny 73 people their vote including 40 Republicans, 25 undeclared, and 8 Democrats. Why did they lack documents? Many didn't realize they were no longer registered (often because they hadn't voted in a long time), so didn't bring documents. But mostly: People didn't know their drivers license (even "real ID") or veteran's card or military identification card does not prove citizenship. Their sin was not finding a website with the laws and reading it carefully. Did he do this just in case? Repeal this law.

Virginia Sapiro

Gilmanton