NH House Republicans Put Costly Unfunded Mandate on Cities and Towns

[Omaha Steve]

http://nhlabornews.com/2015/03/nh-house-gop-jeopardize-voter-privacy-and-force-towns-to-pay-for-equipment-in-voter-id-mandate/

NH House Finance Republicans Vote to Pass Costly
Unfunded Voter ID Mandate on to Cities and Towns;
Jeopardize Voter Privacy

CONCORD, NH – In a party line vote yesterday afternoon, Republicans on the House Finance Committee voted to pass a costly and unfunded mandate on to cities and towns to implement the camera provision of the voter ID law. Amendment 2015-1103h eliminates the requirement that the Secretary of State provide each city and town the photography and printing supplies to implement the voter ID law. Each municipality will now be responsible for purchasing a camera, color printer, photo paper, and any other supplies necessary to comply with the provision of the law set to go into effect in September 2015.

“The House Republicans are passing a costly and unfunded mandate on to local towns and cities to implement an unnecessary camera provision of an already unnecessary voter ID law,” said Zandra Rice Hawkins, executive director of Granite State Progress. “It is clear from the hasty introduction of this amendment that sponsor Rep. Dan McGuire and the other Republicans who voted for it did not even take the time to read the current statute. McGuire told the committee that the state does not need to provide the equipment because cameras and electronic communication are already so common, implying that election moderators should just take a photo with a smart phone and email it to the SOS. However, the voter ID law specifically says the photo must be printed out in color and then the electronic copy immediately deleted.”

“If House Republicans want to change the voter ID law to an electronic record-keeping version, this raises real concerns over privacy. Under that scenario, moderators could use private phones and email accounts to transfer or store images of the electorate with no data protections whatsoever,” Rice Hawkins said.

Granite State Progress and other election protection advocates are calling for the New Hampshire legislature to eliminate the costly camera provision of the voter ID law, saving taxpayer dollars and preventing long delays at the polls.

Transcript of Rep. Dan McGuire (R-Epsom) remarks available here.

Published on Mar 25, 2015
NH State Rep. Dan McGuire (R-Epsom) presents a budget amendment to pass a costly and unfunded mandate on to cities and towns to implement the camera provision of the voter ID law. Amendment 2015-1103h eliminates the requirement that the Secretary of State provide each city and town the photography and printing supplies to implement the voter ID law. Each municipality will now be responsible for purchasing a camera, color printer, photo paper, and any other supplies necessary to comply with the provision of the law set to go into effect in September 2015. The amendment passed on a party line vote.

McGuire told the committee that the state does not need to provide the equipment because cameras and electronic communication are already so common, implying that election moderators should just take a photo with a smart phone and email it to the SOS. However, the voter ID law specifically says the photo must be printed out in color and then the electronic copy immediately deleted. If House Republicans want to change the voter ID law to an electronic record-keeping version, this raises real concerns over privacy. Under that scenario, moderators could use private phones and email accounts to transfer or store images of the electorate with no data protections whatsoever. Full press statement from Granite State Progress at www.GraniteStateProgress.org.

March 24, 2015

Transcript:
Clip1:
Rep. McGuire: Thank you. Yesterday we had an amendment, and I don’t have my (House Finance Committee) Division 1 packet with me, but that delayed a certain piece of election law 2 years, and that was to have people who fill out affidavits at the ballots to be photographed and the reason that it was put in by Division 1 was that they didn’t want to have to spend the money that was inside that law. What this amendment does is allow the policy to continue but it removes the requirement that the Secretary of State provide equipment to the towns. And it has the towns transmit the photographs electronically rather than, um, rather than by paper, so, um, so that’s what this does.

Clip 2:
Rep. Leishman: Representative McGuire, has this been run by the Secretary of State’s office? I’m just curious of what their position is on your amendment.

Rep. McGuire: No, there wasn’t time, I’m sorry.

Clip 3:
Rep. Kurk: So the basic thrust of this is to eliminate the section that delayed the photographic requirement, and to put money into the budget through the HAVA fund to pay for it. Is that correct?

Rep. McGuire: No. It’s to assume that cameras are now so prevalent that actually taking pictures is no big deal. And to have the pictures sent electronically is also no big deal. So that there’s essentially no need to buy printers and computers and et cetera et cetera.