Advertisement Update: Committee recommends House kill bill that would close state primaries to undeclared voters Freshman state legislator asks: ‘Should interlopers, outsiders participate?’ Share Shares Copy Link Copy

(Wednesday, Feb. 22 update:) The House Election Law Committee gave a resounding thumbs down Thursday to legislation that would shut undeclared voters out of party primaries. The committee voted 20-0 to recommend that the full House find the bill inexpedient to legislate and kill the bill. Read more about the the vote on this bill and House Election Law Committee votes on other bill addressing the state's election laws in Thursday's New Hampshire Primary Source political column here on WMUR.com. (Tuesday, Feb. 21 report) A state representative wants to limit participation in party primaries by doing away with a 24-year-old New Hampshire law that allows undeclared voters to participate by taking a ballot of either party on primary election days. “If we’re going to let everybody vote in a primary, whether they are registered in that party or not, why have primaries?” freshman Rep. Norman Silber, R-Gilford, told WMUR.com after he introduced an amendment at a House Election Law Committee session on Tuesday. A Democratic opponent of the bill, Rep. Marjorie Porter of Hillsborough, said Silber’s plan would “jeopardize our first-in-the-nation primary. We’re unique that we can do this. The primary is the first time that the candidates go up against one another in a vote and it’s important that as many people as possible have a chance to vote.” Both lawmaker are members of the committee. Silber noted that former Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz said in May 2016 that her personal position was that “the party’s nominee should be chosen by members of the party.” The former chairman of the Republican National Committee has voiced the same sentiment. In 2014, Reince Priebus, who is now President Donald Trump’s chief of staff, said, “I have been a longtime supporter of closed primaries to choose our candidates for office. This is a position I have held for a long time and is consistent with the party’s platform.” Their positions are not consistent with the positions of the Democratic and Republican parties in New Hampshire. Deputy Secretary of State David Scanlan told the election law committee members that state law makes it clear that the state political parties have the power to determine who can vote in their primaries. He said that the chairman of each party is only required by law to inform the secretary of state of whether undeclared voters may vote in their primaries. “If they want to change the party rule to say that just registered Republicans or just registered Democrats may vote in their primaries, they have the right to do that,” Scanlan said. Scanlan noted that both parties “currently choose to have undeclared voters participate in their primaries. And the courts have upheld that in the past, saying the parties get to decide who participates in their primary elections.” The current law allowing undeclared voters to maintain that status until primary election day, chose a ballot of either party, vote, and then immediately switch back to undeclared status, has been on the books in the Granite State since 1993, Scanlan said. Under Silber’s bill, that provision would be repealed. Undeclared votes would be required to choose a political party by the first Wednesday in June, just prior to the opening of the filing period for state primary elections. The same principle would apply to voters in presidential primaries. Voters would have to choose a party by the opening of the filing period, which in the 2016 presidential primary cycle was early November, 2015. Scanlan noted that about 40 percent of the state’s votes are undeclared, which is the largest voting bloc in the state. According to the secretary of state’s office, 542,433 ballots were cast in the 2016 presidential primary, including 287,653 in the Republican primary and 254,780 in the Democratic primary. Figures compiled by the office also show that on primary election day, 100,678 voters declared themselves Republicans and 98,198 declared themselves Democrats and voted in the primaries. Of those 198,876 undeclared voters, 140,906 of them declared a party, voted, and then returned to undeclared status before leaving their polling places. “Basically, if the purpose of a party primary is to select the best candidate to carry that party’s banner and platform forward, should not that process of the selection of a party’s nominee, be made by members of the party?” Silber asked. “And should interlopers, outsiders, participate?" Calling himself a “cynic,” Silber said, “Some people would say that you can be an undeclared voter and change your registration to, say, Republican and in the primary vote for Donald Trump, thinking he was the easiest one to beat – or vice versa.” “If a person is not an adherent to a party’s platform, why should they vote for or against a particular candidate? If we’re going to let everybody vote in a primary, whether they are registered in that primary or not, why have primaries?” But Porter countered, “We have some of the highest voter turnouts in the country and there is no evidence of fraud. These are solutions looking for a problem,” she said.