Gannon: Standing Up For NH Elections

Press release from Senator Bill Gannon:

June 18, 2021

New Hampshire does elections well. From Town Meeting to the First in the Nation Primary, Granite State voters always take their civic responsibilities seriously, and our voter turnout figures are always among the best in the country.

The system we use to run these elections works well, and the public can and should have confidence in it. We make it easy for voters to register, to prove their identity, and to cast ballots. Our local election officials are well trained to count ballots, and we have a transparent system to resolve recounts and election disputes.

Yet there has been a concentrated push to replace New Hampshire’s time-tested system with a partisan system dictated by Democrats in Washington D.C. Our own Secretary of State Bill Gardner, a lifelong Democrat, has urged Congress to reject this overreaching attempt to run all state elections from Washington. The U.S. House of Representatives has already passed H.R. 1, a bill that would federalize elections in the fifty states, outlawing common-sense voter ID laws, and mandating questionable practices such as ballot harvesting and allowing absentee ballots arriving days after Election Day. Regrettably, our Representatives, Chris Pappas and Ann McLane Kuster, went against Gardner’s defense of New Hampshire election laws and sided with Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

For forty years, Gardner and the Legislature have had the flexibility to defend our First-in-the-Nation Primary. If we cede control of our elections to Washington, I’m afraid we won’t be able to fend off the move by Nevada Democrats to move ahead of us and take away our First-in-the-Nation status.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has scheduled a vote on this sweeping federal takeover of state election laws later this month. I urge our Senators, Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan, to reject this partisan attack on state elections. But if Washington Democrats get their way, we have taken steps in New Hampshire to protect our elections.

The Legislature has approved SB 89, which would preserve New Hampshire laws governing state and local elections. I was proud to support SB 89 with my fellow Republicans. Unfortunately, defending our election laws has become a partisan issue, and Senate Democrats voted in lockstep with their Washington counterparts.

This is a shame. New Hampshire should be proud of how we run our elections. I trust Bill Gardner a lot more than Nancy Pelosi or Chuck Schumer. We will not let Washington overturn how we elect our government in the Granite State.

State Sen. Bill Gannon (R-Sandown) represents District 23.

This press release was produced by Senator Bill Gannon. The views expressed here are the author’s own.