Governor Sununu Signed House Bill 1264 into Law on July 13, 2018.
HB 1264 defined residency in a manner compliant with previous court decisions, closing the loophole that allowed residents of other states (6,540 of them in 2016) to vote here.
The Governor Issued a Signing Statement saying:
“House Bill 1264 restores equality and fairness to our elections, and the Supreme Court has ruled the bill is constitutional while affirming that New Hampshire has a compelling state interest in seeing this bill enacted. Finally, every person who votes in New Hampshire will be treated the same. This is the essence of an equal right to vote.”
GST supports legislation so that people who vote in New Hampshire actually live in New Hampshire.
In May, the Governor and Council requested a Supreme Court opinion on constitutionality of House Bill 1264.
Granite State Taxpayers filed a Memorandum supporting a finding that House Bill 1264 is constitutional.
On July 12, 2018, the Supreme Court issued their Opinion finding House Bill 1264 to be constitutional.
“The fundamental issue posed by the questions submitted is whether the State or Federal Constitution requires the State of New Hampshire to permit persons to vote in this state who seek to claim residency here only for voting purposes while eschewing this status for other purposes. We have no hesitancy in opining that not only does New Hampshire have no such constitutional obligation but, quite the contrary, it has a compelling state interest not to do so.”
“We have commented previously that voter fraud is rare in New Hampshire because what most people consider fraudulent has been legal under our laws and court decisions,” said GST Chairman Ray Chadwick.
“House Bill 1264 cleans up one of the legal loopholes that allowed many of those practices.”