By PAULA TRACY, InDepthNH.org
CONCORD – Despite contentions that the state Department of Motor Vehicles is not doing enough to get access for those who want non-voter identification to vote, and that the bill itself could disenfranchise the rural poor among others, the House Election Law Committee voted 10-8 Tuesday to recommend Senate Bill 223 https://gc.nh.gov/bill_status/billinfo.aspx?id=591&inflect=2 which restricts using student identification for voting.
All Democrats on the committee voted to oppose passage.
Another measure along those lines, House Bill 323 https://gc.nh.gov/bill_status/billinfo.aspx?id=413&inflect=2 which requires the presentation of a government issued identification, already passed and was signed into law on April 3.
State Rep. Russell R. Muirhead, D-Hanover, objected to the bill. Muirhead is a Dartmouth College professor whose teachings focus on the ideas and institutions of constitutional democracy.
He said the committee needs to do more to pressure the state Department of Motor Vehicles to make identification products accessible to rural areas as some voters have no way of getting a non-driving or driving form of identification that the state will now require to vote.
State Rep. Katherine Prudhomme-O’Brien, R-Derry, said she has been through the process of helping people get the identification needed and has found the standards for identification are not the same throughout different schools.
For that reason she said it is proper to “clean it up.”
Muirhead said “there is no evidence of people going to polling places and identifying themselves as someone they are not.
“This is a huge sledge hammer to go after the tiniest mosquito.”
“People who live where I live have to drive almost an hour to a DMV. And if you don’t have a car and if you are from a household, you are a 16 year old…and your family doesn’t have the resources…then you have to find someone who will drive you an hour to get to that place. And that is the kid who is going to be disenfranchised. And by the way, there is no evidence that such a kid is inclined to vote Democratic, I will just note,”‘ Muirhead said.
Harper Richardson, organizing committee of the Student Worker Collective at Dartmouth, said in an interview: “The new voting identification bill is part of a fascistic wave cracking down on the pillars of our democracy, namely voting.
“Not allowing students to use their student IDs will make it far more challenging for them to vote in critical races. It’s particularly notable (that) young people and students tend to vote blue. Limiting students voting supports the Republican anti-union agenda,” Richardson said.
Reporter Zach Laird contributed to this report.