Why Do You Keep Lying To Us, Bill Gardner?

                       

This was one of the first tweets I saw this morning when I logged in to Twitter. Once again, our Secretary of State proclaiming that "NH is the easiest state in the country to vote in." 

https://www.fosters.com/news/20201009/secretary-of-state-bill-gardner-confident-nh-is-ready-for-nov-3-election-rsquounlike-any-otherrsquo

He says it all the time. 

Bill Gardner is the NH Secretary of State. He has access to all kinds of information about voting in NH and the rest of the country. He has access to far more information than a humble blogger like me has. 

Yet, despite my lack of access, I know, by doing a simple Google search, that NH is NOT the easiest state to vote in. It's not even in the top 10 of the easiest states to vote in. 

This map is from a comprehensive voter guide put together by Molly Olmstead and Mark Joseph Stern for Slate. As you can see, NH is considered "moderately difficult," not "easiest state to vote in." 

A 2018 study done by Northern Illinois University found that the 10 easiest states to vote in were:

1. Oregon 
2. Colorado 
3. California 
4. North Dakota 
5. Iowa 
6. Maine
7. Utah 
8. Massachusetts 
9. Maryland 
10. New Jersey
    
    Read more here: https://www.miamiherald.com/article220534340.html#storylink=cpy

I don't see New Hampshire in there either. I do, however, see Oregon at the top of the list. 

If I know this, so does Bill Gardner. That's why I'm asking why he's lying. And I'm asking the incurious NH media, who all operate on a GOP default setting, why they don't ever ask him about this. Why isn't anyone else asking him why he's lying to us? 

Links to a few stories where Gardner proclaims NH is the easiest state to vote in. 

http://indepthnh.org/2020/09/09/gardner-looks-to-november-and-future-elections/

https://www.courthousenews.com/nh-secretary-of-state-gardner-re-elected-to-22nd-term/

https://www.wmur.com/article/nh-primary-source-gardner-praises-end-to-eight-year-ordeal-over-nh-voting-requirements/32678478

Election Integrity

NH has a late state primary. This year it fell on September 11. The general election is November 6. This doesn’t leave a lot of time for the Secretary of State’s office to print up ballots for the 221 towns, 13 cities, or the absentee ballots – especially those that have to be sent overseas. The overseas ballots are sent out 45 days before Election Day. 

This year it didn’t go well. There were errors on the ballots. Some of the overseas voters received incorrect ballots. Stephen D’Angelo, a Democrat running for State Rep. in Rockingham District 4 was completely left off the ballot. In his place was the name of the guy he’d beaten by 5 votes in the primary. Tammy Siekman, a Democrat from Londonderry, running for State Senate was listed as a Libertarian. Gray Chynoweth, a Democrat running for the Executive Council was listed in the column for Democrats, but as a Libertarian. The mistakes have been corrected, but the incorrect ballots were sent overseas.

Deputy Secretary of State, Dave Scanlan, was quite offhand about it. He was quoted in the Concord Monitor as saying that it only affected about 50 votes, but those people would all get a corrected ballot. He said that it was a small percentage of voters who received incorrect ballots, but the key thing was that the ballots for Election Day, when most people vote, were corrected.

That sounds rather blithe to me. If I were one of the 50 voters who got a bogus ballot, I would be angry. I would feel as though my vote didn’t count, and that my state didn’t care about my vote. Secretary of State Bill Gardner was quoted in the Boston Globe as saying, “We do a lot of proofing here, but things happen.” Things happen? We should just accept these errors as part of the process? That’s ironic, coming from a guy who claims to be concerned about election integrity.

Bill Gardner has been the Secretary of State in NH since 1976. He is elected every biennium – not by the voters, but by the NH legislature. For decades he enjoyed the support of legislators from both parties. But that was before he bought into the Republican fairy tales about our elections. That was before candidate Chris Sununu went on the Howie Carr radio show and talked about busloads of people from Massachusetts coming to vote in NH. It was before he got involved with Kris Kobach’s voter integrity commission. It was before he surrendered to becoming a pawn of the far right and their voter fraud/voter suppression agenda.

The bus rumors began when Democrats began winning elections. NH Republicans felt entitled to those seats, and they were plenty miffed when they started losing. Then came Chris Sununu who really put the rumors up in lights – and by doing so, enabled Donald Trump to question the integrity of NH elections. Somewhere along the way Republicans decided it was easier to blame their failure to recruit young people to their party on student voting, and they’ve been desperate to eliminate it ever since.

And so they set about undermining our elections. Every year there are nearly a dozen bills filed that attempt to redefine the words “residency,” “resident,” and of course, everyone’s favorite, “domicile.” SB 3, currently in a bizarre legal limbo, comes with a provision that if your residency is in question, people may come to your house and question you. Yep, that’s voting in the free world, folks. In a state that has no problem with voter fraud. Brought to you by the political party that ran an out-of-stater as their goobernatorial candidate in 2014.

A study done by the Secretary of State’s office and the AG found that voter fraud is quite rare in New Hampshire. Yet, State Senator Regina Birdsell (a zealous perpetuator of the false fraud narrative) often refers to the “perception” her constituents have about voter fraud. It’s a perception that she and her cohorts in the Republican Party have worked hard to create. Our hapless Secretary of State has fallen right into their trap.

When asked about the busloads, Gardner said at a hearing at the State House, that his office has never been provided proof, but a lot of people in this state believe that is happening. Under no other circumstances do we write laws based on perception or the beliefs of “a lot of people.” It is truly unfortunate that Bill Gardner didn’t choose to retire before he tarnished his own legacy. 

Finally, there are those who continue to spout the fiction of college students influencing our elections. A helpful reminder: the Republican Party won control of every branch of our state government in the last election. It seems all those college students and busloads of Democrats voted Republican. 

Published as an op-ed in the November 2, 2018 edition of the Conway Daily Sun newspaper. 

Hankies and Hysteria

Our legislators are a resourceful bunch. Before every voting session, there are caucuses, one for the Republicans and one for the Democrats. Upcoming votes are discussed. Then, as they approach Representatives Hall, lobbyists are standing in the hall, handing out information sheets. The NH Liberty Alliance hands out a mustard yellow sheet called “The Gold Standard” that tells libertea leaning representatives how to vote on key liberty issues. There is an explanation of why a bill is either pro or anti liberty, but for those who don’t want to do that much reading, there is a handy key up in the right (!) hand corner of the page, that lists the bill number and whether to vote yes or no. It’s easier than thinking.

This year the majority party, unsatisfied with every tactic you’ve read so far, has added a new technique for telling their members how to vote.  Republican floor leaders now have red and green hankies. When they want their members to vote yes, they wave the green hankies. They wave red hankies for no. For those who lose their short-term memory in between the caucus and the House floor, this must be an invaluable reminder, and not at all undignified. Oh, wait – I take that back. Representative Al Baldasaro was seen kissing, licking, and fondling his hankie during one vote. At least we taxpayers are only paying them $100 a year for their antics.

*Note: Red and green are the colors of the buttons on each legislator’s voting station.

This is a new development, because prior Speakers wouldn’t have tolerated it. The hankie wavers, however, are part of the majority leadership. There are seven Assistant Majority Leaders: Al Baldasaro, Dave Danielson, Larry Gagne, Michael McCarthy, Laurie Sanborn, Victoria Sullivan, and Michael Vose. There are also eight whips. There’s the Majority Whip, Kathleen Hoelzel, and the Deputy Majority Whip, Bill Ohm. There are six Assistant Majority Whips: David Bates, Gregory Hill, Debra DeSimone, Carolyn Matthews, Claire Rouillard, and Terry Wolf. That’s a possible 15 semaphorists signaling during a vote. Apparently they aren’t worried about distracting their colleagues with all that flapping.

For such a large leadership team, it’s remarkably concentrated. Nine of the members are from Hillsborough County, 7 from Rockingham, and one from Merrimack County. There are 10 counties in the state, yet only three were able to provide representatives who possess the requisite leadership skills? One also wonders precisely what leadership qualities Representative Baldasaro displays, other than a history of obnoxious comments and slobbering on a hankie.

Speaker Chandler seems to be having trouble keeping his House in order. In addition to the hankie waving is the schedule. Weeks go by without a voting session, than at the last minute hundreds of bills are crammed into a two-day marathon. This ensures that the bills won’t get proper attention. It also ensures that representatives with jobs will probably miss one of the marathon days, meaning fewer votes on key issues. Is this intentional, or just poor management?

Meanwhile, the NH GOP has become increasingly shrill, bordering on the hysterical. HB 628, the bill to create a family and medical leave insurance program, something that would benefit every non-wealthy worker, is being billed as a way to create AN INCOME TAX. Bill Gardner, who has been Secretary of State since the Second Punic War is going to be challenged in 2019. This is being touted as: The DEMOCRATS WANT TO TAKE AWAY THE FIRST IN THE NATION PRIMARY. And of course, any discussion about ending the wholesale slaughter of our public school students is A GUN GRAB.

Bill Gardner was a good Secretary of State for a long time. If he’d retired 4 years ago, we’d all be burnishing his halo. Instead, he bought into the nonsense the majority party has been churning about voter fraud since Democrats started winning elections in 2006. He allied himself with the Republicans in their quest to prevent student voting, and he’d recently chosen to prevent seniors from voting, by dictating that towns  have no right to reschedule their town meetings during storms. During the most recent storm, the State House closed early but old people were supposed to leap into their cars to go vote in a blizzard. Then, he allied himself with Kris Kobach, which was a bad move on every level. Kobach’s recent Kansas voter fraud trial revealed how bogus his whole enterprise is. Gardner should have avoided the fraudulent fraud commission, the wet firecracker waste of tax dollars. In 35 states, the Secretary of State is elected by the voters. In NH, the SoS is elected by the legislature. It may be time to reconsider that.

The Trump presidency reveals a moral and ethical vacuum within the Republican Party. No wonder they sound so shrill. They can feel their grip on power and relevance slipping away. Those hankies may be put to good use in November.

This was published as an op-ed in the March 30, 2018 edition of the Conway Daily Sun newspaper

Business as Usual

The voter fraud drum began cranking up in 2006, when the GOP lost control of the NH House for the first time since the Civil War. Last year the drummers reached new heights. Before the election, Chris Sununu was on the radio in Massachusetts complaining about busloads of Mass voters interfering in our elections. Shortly after the election, Donald Trump started tweeting his displeasure about voter fraud in NH. The next thing you know, there are 40 bills before the NH legislature in 2017 that have to do with voting.

A news story at NH1 this week has the Secretary of State’s office claiming over 400 letters to newly registered voters were either not answered or not deliverable. Anyone who thinks the Secretary of State’s office should be in the investigating business ought to take a look at the SoS website. It’s a nightmare. I suggest they stop trying to play Harriet the Spy, and focus on bringing that office from the 19^th to the 21^st century.

This week, the full Senate will be voting on SB 3, a big, messy, voter suppression bill. A voter will be required to demonstrate their intent to be domiciled here by renting or leasing, buying a house, obtaining a NH driver’s license or non-driver ID, enrolling children in a school, listing the residence on tax forms or other government forms, providing the address to the USPS, obtaining a resident hunting or fishing license, or obtaining utility services at that place for an indefinite period. Those registering on Election Day would be required to provide proof within 10 days following the election. There is a form for a same day registrant to fill out that is approximately as long as Tolstoy’s War and Peace.

Supervisors of the checklist will be required to follow up, and do investigative work; including visiting the address or sending “agents” to verify that the individual was domiciled there on Election Day. The original bill specified those “agents” would be police. The new, amended (but not improved) bill doesn’t define who those “agents” might be. They might be the police. The might be Cub Scouts. They might be members of an interpretive dance troupe. They might be armed vigilantes. Call me crazy, but I don’t believe that casting a ballot should include the threat of storm troopers knocking at the door. Be sure to ask Senator Bradley why he’s sponsoring this nasty bit of business.

The voter suppression folks keep carping about the need to ensure the integrity of our elections. Of course, they’re the same people who have been sowing the seeds of mistrust for over a decade. If only they worked this hard at solving real problems in our state. Speaking of integrity, three bills aimed at creating independent redistricting procedures all failed. The majority party wants to be able to continue to gerrymander every 10 years without interference.

Something we could solve is child lead poisoning. We don’t have 40 bills to address this actual problem. Lead paint has been banned since the 70’s, but still, NH children are exposed to lead paint, and lead in the water from old pipes. If we cared about kids, we’d do something about this – but every time some pesky do-gooder tries, the landlords start to complain about how much it will cost to fix. It seems we value landlords more than we do children. By the time you read this, the fate of SB 247 will be decided – the sole bill aimed at protecting NH children from lead.

The legislature has new ethics rules that have expanded reporting requirements. Lawmakers are expected to file a form saying they have a conflict on any given bill. They can still file legislation to protect their business, or enhance their profits, and they can still vote on it. This form is a sort of magic fig leaf, providing the illusion of ethical cover for the many conflicts of interest our volunteer legislators have on bills they sponsor and vote on. The fig leaf has no teeth – there are no punitive actions taken against those who enrich themselves at taxpayer expense.

The Senate will be voting on SB 244 this week, a bill to increase the amount of money exempted from taxation under the interest and dividends tax for both individuals and businesses. The lead sponsor is Senator Andy Sanborn – a business owner. The Senate passed the bill once, and referred it to the Finance Committee. In the initial vote, multimillionaire State Senator Jeb Bradley recused himself, citing a conflict of interest. Andy Sanborn proudly declared he’d filed his form, and went on to vote for a bill he sponsored, that will increase his wealth.

A summary: This week the NH Senate will continue to perpetuate the illusion of a problem, fail to solve a real problem, and vote for a tax break for the already wealthy.

Business as usual.

This was published as an op-ed in the March 31, 2017 edition of the Conway Daily Sun newspaper