New Hampshire Republicans Strip Student Voting Rights in Latest Attack on Democracy

The Lie That Won't Die

New Hampshire Republicans have spent the last decade waging war on voting rights, and they're not even pretending anymore.

Last week, Governor Kelly Ayotte signed House Bill 323 into law, eliminating high school and college IDs as valid voter identification. The bill's sponsor, Rep. Ross Berry, claimed student IDs were "the weakest link in our election integrity framework."

That's a lie. The weakest link is the Republican Party's relentless assault on democracy itself.

A Pattern of Disenfranchisement

This isn't an isolated incident. It's the latest salvo in a coordinated campaign to make voting harder for anyone Republicans think might vote against them.

The playbook started in 2016, when then-candidate Chris Sununu told radio host Howie Carr "there's no doubt there's election fraud here" to explain away Democratic victories. Donald Trump amplified the lie after losing New Hampshire, claiming "thousands" of people were "brought in on buses" from Massachusetts to vote illegally.

Sununu won his race by more than 16,000 votes in that same election. Suddenly, he told WMUR he wasn't "aware of any widespread voter fraud in New Hampshire." Convenient memory loss.

But the damage was done. Republicans had their talking point, and they've been running with it ever since.

Targeting Students, Again and Again

In 2017, Sununu signed Senate Bill 3, requiring documentary proof of domicile that made it harder for college students to vote. Superior Court Judge David Anderson saw through it: "The new process establishes enough hurdles, the forms contain enough complexity, and the penalties present enough risk that they tend to dissuade a specific type of voter from even engaging in the process." The state Supreme Court agreed and struck it down.

A year later came House Bill 1264, forcing people with out-of-state licenses or registrations to switch to New Hampshire versions if they registered to vote. The ACLU called it what it was: a poll tax.

In September 2024, Sununu signed House Bill 1569, eliminating exceptions to voter ID requirements and banning affidavit ballots. The result? At least 96 voters turned away at town meetings in March 2025, and another 123 during November municipal elections.

Compare that to the Heritage Foundation's own data: 29 reported cases of voter fraud in New Hampshire over the past 20 years. Total.

Six months before signing HB 1569, Sununu himself said "our system works well, we have really high voter turnout, the affidavit ballot and process seems to be working pretty darn well."

The Real Agenda

Lisa Kovack, director of the New Hampshire Campaign for Voting Rights, calls HB 323 "a quiet but consequential step backward for democracy in New Hampshire."

She's right. But it's not quiet if you're paying attention.

New Hampshire doesn't have a voter fraud problem. It has a Republican Party problem. When they're not busy gerrymandering state Senate, Executive Council, and congressional districts, they're inventing new barriers to keep certain people from voting.

The pattern is clear: target college students, low-income residents, and anyone else likely to vote Democratic. Dress it up as "election integrity." Ignore the data showing voter fraud is virtually nonexistent. Repeat.

A National Movement

This isn't just happening in New Hampshire. It's part of a nationwide assault on voting rights that accelerated after the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision in 2010 empowered wealthy donors, and the Shelby County v. Holder ruling in 2013 gutted the Voting Rights Act.

Now the Trump administration and congressional Republicans are pushing the SAVE America Act, which would fundamentally change voter registration nationwide. The nonpartisan group vote.org compiled a list of who would be hurt most: married women, rural Americans, first-time and young voters, low-income Americans, people of color.

Notice a pattern? These are all groups that tend to vote Democratic.

Call It What It Is

New Hampshire Republicans aren't protecting election integrity. They're undermining it.

They're making it harder to vote because they know their policies are unpopular. They're targeting students because young people overwhelmingly reject their agenda. They're lying about voter fraud because the truth doesn't serve their purposes.

This is voter suppression, plain and simple. And it's happening in broad daylight.

The only question is whether voters will let them get away with it.