A New Hampshire law tightening the rules around residency is spurring confusion in the state that hosts the country’s first primary Tuesday, with Democrats and advocates saying they’re worried the law might prompt college students to sit out Election Day.

“College towns are trying to minimize the effects of this, but it’s always hard to tell with students,” says Linda Fowler, a Dartmouth College government professor.

In 2018, the Republican-controlled legislature passed the law, which redefined resident and domicile to have the same meaning. Proponents of the law say it matches those in every other state and won’t impact voting.

[National Democratic groups litigate 2020 in the courts]

The new law comes on the heels of Republican complaints over the 2016 Senate election victory of Democrat Maggie Hassan over Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte by only 1,017 votes out of 738,620 cast. In 2017, Kris Kobach, vice chairman of a since-disbanded presidential commission on voting fraud, said it was “likely” that more than 5,000 out-of-state voters had illegally tipped the scales in favor of the Democrat. New Hampshire’s secretary of state said there was no proof for that claim.