Bennington Election Report 2020

As of this writing, there are 1084 registered voters in Bennington: 275 Democrats, 320 Republicans, and 489 Undeclared.

Today we turn to the subject of voter purging, which has been in the news quite a lot recently. It's important to understand how this works, as New Hampshire towns and cities are mandated to purge their voter rolls once every 10 years, in years ending in a 1. Thus 2021 will witness a large drop in our voter numbers.

The voter checklist always has some "dead wood" on it: usually voters who have died or moved. Purging the voter rolls is a normal activity for local election officials, and is mandated by the Help America Vote Act of 2002. However, it is very important that it be done carefully and correctly, so as not to disenfranchise voters or discourage them from voting. There have been some serious problems with voter purges in other states recently.

For example, the Texas Secretary of State resigned in May of 2019 after legal proceedings revealed that a voter purge that he had initiated had used flawed methodology and disenfranchised thousands of Texas citizens. Despite the fact that the purge list was rescinded, many citizens had already been sent letters threatening to remove them from voter roles if they could not produce 3 documents proving that they were citizens. Some of these voters were new citizens, who could easily have been intimidated by these letters.

This demonstrates how important it is to have a system that simultaneously works to update voter rolls when people move or die, while still ensuring that citizens who are eligible to vote are never prevented or intimidated from doing so. And there has to be a back-up plan: If a citizen is removed from the voter rolls by mistake, there must be a way for them to re-register, even if they discover the mistake when they come to vote. Fortunately, in NH, we have a system for this: Same Day Registration.

But even in states that do have Same Day Registration, there can be problems: A voter who doesn't realize that they have been purged may not come to the polls with all of the required documents to prove residency. Forcing busy citizens to jump through unforeseen hoops is another form of voter suppression. All of this could be prevented by adopting a Canadian style of registration: permanent voter lists, which are updated between elections using administrative data sources like taxation and motor vehicle registration to keep names and addresses of voters updated. Using this method, Canada has a 92% voter registration rate, and far more accurate voter rolls. Last time we purged our checklist in 2011, over 100 names were removed.

Voting is a right, not a privilege. Nowhere does it say that you have to vote in every election to keep your right to vote. Yet some states have "use it or lose it" requirements for voting. In the news recently is Georgia, whose "use it or lose it" law caused 107,000 voters to be removed in 2017 because they had not voted in recent elections. According to the Georgia law, voters who haven't voted in the previous 5 years are put on an "inactive" list. If these inactive voters do not vote in the next 2 general elections, their registration will be voided.

New Hampshire's 10 year voter purge also uses voter participation in federal elections to identify infrequent voters to send letters to, asking them if they still reside in Bennington. We do not have the intermediate step of putting voters on an inactive list. The big difference, though, is that we have Same Day registration to catch any mistakes made.

Next year, letters will be sent out to all voters who haven't voted in the last 2 general elections (2018 and 2020). Many of these will come back unforwarded. Voters who are still at their addresses will have plenty of time before the next election to let us know they are still in Bennington, as there is only 1 election in odd numbered years (Town Election in March).

Voters can look up their current voter information on the Secretary of State's Voter Information Lookup page: http://sos.nh.gov/VoteInforLook.aspx

Remember to come to the polls with your photo I.D. And if you are a new voter coming to register, be sure to bring something that ties you to your domicile: motor vehicle registration, drivers' license, any other government or school I.D. with your residence on it, school enrollment forms, public utility bills, landlord agreements, real estate sales agreements, tax bills, an affidavit signed by the property owner where you live, or any other evidence that ties you to the place where you currently live. If you have recently moved and do not have these proofs, YOU WILL BE ALLOWED TO VOTE by signing an affidavit. Election officials in Bennington promise that we will do our best to make registering and voting as pleasant and painless as ever.

See you at the polls!

Brenda Gibbons

Melissa Searles

Victoria Turner

SUPERVISORS OF THE CHECKLIST