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People who are voting absentee have to attest, like, I can't be there in person. Right. So they can try to call them and say, hey, you forgot your signature. But, like, they're probably out of town. They said, I can't come in person. So there's not a chance if you make a mistake to cure your ballot, as we say, because it's all in the same time frame. And sometimes people are so, the election officials are so busy because the polls are so packed. Like, they don't have time until in the morning. It becomes the end of the day. They're like, oh, now we got to do the absentee ballots after the election. the end of this whole day when it was something like we could have reopened the envelopes checked off the list made sure that everyone who the ballots we have we can count because they have all the proper things this makes me very sad this is very frustrating experience of election law and your podcast really and you've signed up to get a lot of bad news so All right, welcome to New Hampshire Has Issues, the podcast that dares to ask, are we first in the nation for how accessible it is to vote? That's a good one. Thank you. The podcast that dares to ask, do you have your birth certificate with you right now? No. No. Sorry, Liz. Excellent tagline, Mackenzie. Well done. Thank you. Thank you. I didn't think about that one for a while. I bet. That's such a good one. I have a passport regularly available, but I don't bring it with me. I'm not on the move with my passport. You don't carry it around with you all the time. I don't. I have my driver's license with me at all times-ish, but not my passport and definitely not my birth certificate. Your tagline is fantastic. Do you have your birth certificate on you right now? I don't. Now it's somewhere in my house. It's somewhere in here, but I would have to find it. I am your I'm your host, Liz Canada, and joining me today is the director of New Hampshire Campaign for Voting Rights, Mackenzie Taylor. Hi, Mackenzie. Thank you for being here. Wow. Thanks for having me, Liz. I'm excited. I am so thrilled that you are here because, yes, voting is important, and yes, folks have said democracy is crumbling, but truly, a few of the previous guests that I've had, when I ask them at the end of our time together, I say, like, what's something people can do? A lot of them in their list have said, You have to go and vote. So it's like, you know who I need is Mackenzie to come tell me, what is it like to go vote in New Hampshire? So I'm hoping you could teach me some things today. Happy to do that and unfortunately share some tough news. This podcast is full of tough news. It's full of issues. It's right in the title. It's the whole premise of this show. Indeed, indeed. I thought we would start with a simple question. Maybe it's a little bit more complicated than some of my other simple questions. But I used to live in Colorado. I lived there for not quite 10 years. So I voted there a few times. When I voted there, we would get our ballots in the mail. We would get that. I don't even remember how far in advance, but we'd get in the mail and we would get something in the mail that was like this little booklet of everything that was on our ballot. And it would have like this side of the issue and this side of the issue. I lived in Colorado the year that Colorado passed marijuana legalization. And so in the booklet would be like, here are the reasons people support legalizing marijuana. Here are the reasons people oppose. it. But it was like an unbiased, like both sides of the issue so that as you went through your ballot, you could be like, okay, let me read about it. Let me do this. And then when you finished your ballot, you could, you know, sign it, put it together and drop it off in a ballot box, or could just go on election day instead of sending in your ballot and vote in person. So with that long preamble of my time in Colorado and voting, how many of those things can I do in New Hampshire? So many options in Colorado. And Colorado famously is like one of the states we use as kind of an example of access. So it is a good comparison to New Hampshire. All right. So how are we doing in New Hampshire? You can do very few of those things in New Hampshire. Some of the way to explain this, I think, is like a little history lesson to go back to 1993. I'm 11 years old, thriving. Yes, yes. I was born. So it was a big year for me and voter registration. Too soon, Mackenzie. Cut. Cut the whole episode. Cut it here. Painful. Never mind. That's fine. It's fine. The National Voter Registration Act passed in 1993 and had all of these provisions that include the voter registration form that most states use. You can fill out in person. You could fill it out with a person from a nonprofit at your door, at an event. You can mail it in. And you could also register at the DMV. So when you're getting your license, interacting with them, you could also register to vote. There is an exception to the NVRA. The bill said the only states that don't have to do this is if you have a same day, like on election day, voter registration continuously. If you can register on election day, you don't have to do all these things. So New Hampshire, being who we are, said, great, we're going to do that. We don't want to work with the federal government. That's a lot of work. It might be a lot of money. So we're just going to pass same day registration. So they passed election day registration, which is great. Very, really great. We're, for that reason, exempt from the National Voter Registration Act. Although same day registration is great they kind of said okay great we're done that's it mission accomplished roll the banner out election day registration is really important because in a lot of states that are nvra states you have to register by a certain time right and then if you're not sorry like we'll see you next time like you didn't register in time colorado is a good example because i believe in colorado you can register ahead of time you can register online you can register at the dmv and you can also if you skip all of those things you like miss every single one you can register in person on election day. That sounds pretty good. We can do both. So it's not if you do same-day registration, same-day voter registration on election day, then you're not allowed to do these other things. That's not the case. Other states have done both of them. We can have it all. Yes. And also you talk about voting via mail, mailing ballots, early vote. We don't have those things here either. I think about 80% of people register to vote in New Hampshire on election day. And most Most people, also a vast majority, vote on election day, not by absentee ballot. There is an absentee process if you're out of town. If you have a disability, the law was expanded a little bit to count in that absence to clarify that if you are working. So if I'm a firefighter who works 12-hour shifts, I might still be in Manchester, but I'm working the entire time the polls are open. So those folks can vote absentee. If you have child care requirements or you care for another adult and you aren't able to go to the polls, those people can also vote absentee. And if there's a snowstorm on town meeting day, there's a special little provision that the Monday before, if it's going to be an emergency, you can go vote absentee in person because you don't want to travel in the storm. So those folks can vote absentee. Assuming that the storm is not also happening on the Monday before? Well, if it's happening the Monday before, you got to make a choice. If it's a two-day storm. Hope that big, huge snowstorm isn't today. Right. Okay. Because I think it was two or three years. I think it was at least two in a row that there were big storms on town meeting day in March. Oh, I remember. And everyone said, can we postpone? So they added that provision in. But it's a pretty small list. And the Constitution in New Hampshire says absence and disability are the reasons. So those are guaranteed. And we have made sure that we're including the other things there. We could expand it and have everyone have the option to vote absentee. Right. We have not done that. So it is a pretty small group of people who can vote by absentee ballot. And if not, you got to vote on election day. And you could go to your town or city clerk's office and register to vote before election day. Or you can register on election day. There's not an online option. There's not an option with a volunteer organization. It's limited. I can't go on the old internet and say, I would like to register to vote in New Hampshire. I can't do that. You cannot. You can, if you Google that, it'd probably take you to the Secretary of State's website and it would say, here's how you do it. You go to your town or you go on election day. So can I print a form out and mail it in? No. You actually don't even, the form is not even on the website. Can't find it. Not available. It's kind of a secret. So it's like a treasure hunt. If you want to vote, X marks the spot and the X is your town clerk's office. We have somehow decided, and again, this decision was made in the 90s. It has changed. We have changed a little bit. Like we are talking via computer. It's... We are inside the computer right now. We're in the computer. So kind of the process was like, it's got to be in person. You got to register with an election official in person, face to face. And that's a nice process, I guess, but it really limits the access. And we're talking about, I live in Manchester, so my city clerk's office is open regular business hours. I think they're open late on Tuesdays. They're open a little bit later into the evening. If I lived in Shelburne. Shelburne, yeah. Or Errol. There or not. many towns where I know they are. In most, I don't know those clerks hours by heart, but a lot of smaller places, the town clerk might be open one day or two days a week. Some of them are open, you know, for a couple hours on the second Saturday of the month. So because it's one kind of person, you know, it's a very small town. Right. And that's what they need for like their town business. But it does mean that there are, if you're, if you can't register on election day and you got to go to your town clerk's office, you got to like put it on the calendar, get time off make sure you don't have a conflict because there's not a large list of options of how to get there and even with like a small town that has a you know a part-time town clerk who's maybe there two days a week or whatever it might be another organization like in other states other organizations can sometimes register people at you know big community events they will have like come register to vote here we can't do that in new hampshire either no not allowed the only people who can register people to vote are election officials folks who are working at the polls on election day sometimes people get deputized by the election officials but you can't have like a voter registration drive here where a bunch of volunteers go out and say let's make sure people have updated their registration that is not allowed oh so so it makes it a little bit harder makes it a little challenging to register here okay so if i am new to new hampshire as i once was not super long ago and i want to register on election day i've missed everything the the election is here. I want to go vote. What do I need to do to be able to register to vote on election day? A couple years ago, let's, let's say it's 2022. You would just bring yourself, you would bring your ID. And if you didn't have the ID, wasn't erupted your address, you know, you hadn't yet, maybe it had your old address on it, maybe had an old name on it, but you could still, you would go to the polls and you'd give that information. Anything that wasn't on that proof of ID, if you didn't have it with you, you could sign, you would have test yes I am Liz Canada I live here here's my address this is the party I choose if you choose one and then sign and say under severe penalty of voter fraud I test I am 18 years old I'm a U.S. citizen I'm domiciled so like live basically is a fancy word for live in the place that I say I do bring down my address and you are who you say you are I'm me Liz Canada hello 18 or older U.S. citizen domiciled live in New Hampshire and I really am me. Yes. And I would have to sign a legal form that's like, I am not lying. And if I am lying, I'm in big trouble. That very elusive voter registration form that's very hard to find has that on it. You're signing all of that. If you didn't have, for example, proof of address, you'd have to sign something else. They would send something to you. So there's a lot of checks in there. But at the end of the day, if you were a qualified voter, you could go, you'd make sure you fill out the form and then be registered to vote, cast your ballot. Now, in the year 2020, or not believing people's attesting on their signature anymore. So you got to go with you. Who's the we in that sentence? Because I feel like we, you and me, probably believe people if they say I am signing a legal document under threat of voter fraud and being a big trouble. Like I would believe those people, right? The legislature in 2024 and then the governor decided that we needed, everyone needed physical proof of everything to go in you got to prove your identity so you got to have something that has your photo on it so your photo ID right could be state ID still at this point in time you can use like a military ID a student ID something that's like a government ID official has your name your photo so you can see as you are and an expiration date like we know that it's recently updated yeah proof of your age so that could be on your license it could be if you don't have your license like a birth certificate or a passport and So something that shows your identity, your age, your domicile, your address. So again, a license could do this. A rental agreement, a lease, a mortgage, an official bill, like an electric bill. Those things can prove that. And then the final one, which is the most unique to New Hampshire, is your proof of citizenship. So this can only be proved with three things. Your birth certificate, your passport, which not everyone has either. Not everyone has. And then if you are a naturalized citizen naturalization papers. So for me, I was born in New Hampshire, one of the few, and my birth certificate would show that I was a U.S. citizen because it's from the United States and my passport. If you're someone who's naturalized and you have an international birth certificate, it's going to be your passport or your naturalization papers. I don't know about other people. I don't carry my passport or birth certificate in my back pocket or around with me. It's in a safe place. Or it's being sent off to be renewed. Right. Right. Right now. So that is the thing. Most people might carry around their ID, their license. College ID. Right. College ID. Yeah. Something with their picture on it. I know. I used to have my college ID on one of those lanyards. You'd come in with your lanyard. Do the college students still do that, or is that just in the year 2000? Yikes. I was in college. You would have a lanyard, but you better not wear it around your neck. That's what you do for freshman orientation. A spinning on. Yes. Right, right, right. But then you outgrow it within two weeks. Right. Yeah. lanyard with the ID on it. Yeah, I hear that. It would be a good way, though, to make sure everyone has their proof of ID when they go to vote. You can vote. Everyone's got their lanyard. That's right. So that last piece was new last year, or went into effect the end of mid-November of last year. There's some states that you need proof of citizenship for voting in the state elections, but those states also might have other ways to register. We're pretty unique in that you've got to register in person, either on election day or with your clerk's office, and you better have your documentary proof of citizenship with you in order to do it. So if you went in, you were new, and you were like, I've got my ID, it has my address, it has my age, it has my name, I probably showed my passport or birth certificate in order to get this. Is that enough? They would say, no, we don't have proof of citizenship. Go home, get it, and come back. Holy smokes. So if it's October, and somehow I've missed all of the election conversations, which it feels really hard to do in New Hampshire to miss all the election conversations. It would be kind of nice. I think maybe people's algorithms do that for them, where they just don't see the stuff. But if it's October, my friend is like, hey, you got to register to vote. Are you going to do that? And I don't have my birth certificate and I don't have a passport. What option do I have to vote in November? I mean, you could see how to expedite a passport. That's expensive, Mackenzie. Yeah, I mean, the passport itself is also expensive as I recently have learned about the$130 plus mailing plus the photos process. I mean, you have to find proof somehow. You have to try to figure out how to get those things expedited, but it takes a while, right? It's like, it's not instantaneous. If you are someone who's really lucky that you missed this, but you live in New Hampshire, right? It might be quicker for you to get a birth certificate because you're able to go to the town or the state and that's an easier process. But if you were born in California California is quite far away. I don't know what the process is there. Or any other state. Any other state. Literally any other state. It's not going to be as quick as driving down the block and getting it. You know what? I did this test, actually. So I was born in New Jersey. I'm going to whisper it. I was born in New Jersey. I don't have my birth certificate. I'm sure I had it at some point. I was born. And I have moved to different states and, you know, in all the moves, boxes, boxes, boxes. I don't know where it is. So I ordered it in the spring because I I'm like someday I'm gonna need sooner or later sooner or later I'm gonna need this birth certificate so I ordered it and to order it from New Jersey it took me like two minutes like it was very easy to order remotely to order online but then it took me like seven weeks to get it yeah that's the that's one of one of the issues is it's not right away and famously not everyone who lives in New Hampshire was born in New Hampshire what many legislators are only now finding out breaking news not everyone was born here yes their personal town clerk doesn't have their birth certificate oh my god and that's one of the problems I am in the process of changing my name on my passport it's kind of the last of a long list of things yeah and you do have to send the full thing in the full the full passport and my marriage certificate in the mail The original documents have to go in the mail. Yes. When you do that, you don't have it with you. And I don't know how long that will take. Right. Yeah. And then it's gone and you do not have that document until it is returned to you. I mean, I'm hoping that they quickly send it back because it feels a little high pressure. But yeah, I'm currently going through that process. And so there's no appeal. It's not like I can show up on election day and be like, no, no, I ordered it. I promised Right. Correct. As of the law right now, that's how it is. And we saw this. That's a lot of yikes right there, Mackenzie. That's a lot of yikes. When did this take effect? Because we had a huge election in 2024. Did it affect people then? I think they knew it was going to be a big deal because I think it went into effect November 11th or so, about a week after the election. I see. So as soon as people, you know, if they were proactive in going to their clerk's office, it was in effect right then. Again, most people register or update their registration on election day. So we saw in town elections. Yeah, in Exeter, we vote in March for our town elections. So that's something we just did in March. Yep. So we had some observers, like nonpartisan observers, volunteers who went to the polls to kind of watch and say, like, how is this going to work. Are people going to know? For town meeting, town elections, you have pretty engaged voters, folks who are going to... You are pretty dang engaged if you're going to town elections. Big shout out to everybody who is at their town election voting on zoning amendments. Cheers to all of you. The school funding, the school funding, buying a new fire station. I mean, important things. Yes, absolutely. But it's not quite a presidential election turnout. Which is actually kind of wild because the impact you can have on your town. Count elections is so significant, but that's for another day, perhaps. So we had some observers, nonpartisan observers there just watching, hey, is this, are people going to be turned away? Do people have their stuff? Are people registering? Like, what is the deal? And we were blown away by the number of people who the calls we were getting from observers saying we've had, oh, one person turned away, two turned away. There's been 10 people trying to vote and three got turned away. So we thought it was gonna be a big deal. We weren't sure how many people who are voting in these really small elections were registering.

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We

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found out it was a lot. I believe the total number is 121 people that we have heard of across the town elections and special election that happened so far this year who went to either register or vote and didn't have all of the proof needed and were turned away. And that's not any of the cities yet. No, that's not any of the cities. It's not Manchester. It's not Nashua. Whoa. So that was a really high number. And I will caveat that some of those folks might have come back and voted. And like, that's great. They were motivated enough to do so. Dig through the boxes, find that passport. Haven't traveled in six years. Got to find it. Go back home. Didn't know it was a law. Came back. But we basically between having folks at the polls saying, oh, OK, you got turned away and trying to talk to people, asking the election officials and then doing some follow up to the election officials and saying, hey, we know you had an election, do you remember how many people were turned away? That was the number that we got of that many people were impacted. So we are once again going to try to watch this and get a sense of it during the city elections. We want people to not be turned away, to know ahead of time, but we think it's really important to understand with this new law, what is the impact? Because it's very new, it's very different, and there's not other states that have the identical process to us. Can I just, I'm just going to ask the question, Mackenzie, is this like a touch, like a smidge of voter suppression? A little bit? I don't like using big words, but I feel voter suppression. This feels like a lot of barriers. Like you got to jump through a lot of hoops and there's no sort of like fail safe. Like if none of these things happen, but you still are someone who should be able to vote that day, it doesn't seem like there's a backup. Absolutely. Because we're seeing people who, again, they're eligible to vote. They meet all the categories. We heard of folks who came in with their military ID to register and that was not enough. And they were turned away because they didn't have their birth certificate or their passport. Folks are eligible and they are being turned away and restricted from voting solely because of lack of documents. Not because they don't meet the criteria laid out in the Constitution. solely because they either don't have like someone who doesn't have their birth certificate doesn't have a passport or there was a woman a voter who was willing to tell her story who came in to vote wanted to vote on the school she had her young kids with her yeah and she didn't know about this new law she was like oh I'm gonna register I'm gonna vote new to town sure and she didn't have her passport or birth certificate so she was turned away and then it was like the day got away from her she had her kids until she was running errands and she wasn't able to come back it is a lot of work to parent. End of sentence. Right. So that mom came in with her kids, couldn't register to vote. The day got away from her. And what happened? And she just didn't, she didn't register and she wasn't able to cast her ballot. She showed up to vote for the schools her kids go to. Yes. And she was turned away. Right. Unbelievable. Believable, but unbelievable. There is an extra piece here that I neglected to mention that for many of us who have changed our last names because of marriage or any other reasons. Oh my God. Your birth certificate does not match. I was not born Taylor. It didn't predict your future? It wasn't like, we're pretty sure that Mackenzie's going to meet somebody. So your birth certificate doesn't have your married name. And it doesn't change. I was born as St. Germain. Right. So for those people, or people who have gotten divorced and changed their name, people change their name for all sorts of reasons. That doesn't match their birth certificate. But marriage is a big one. That's a big one. And typically, dare I say, typically women are the ones. It does seem to be mostly women who change their name when they get married. So this law might affect women more. So they have to bring a special fifth document, potentially, to be able to show that that person on their birth certificate, the baby on the birth certificate, was indeed them. There was a lot of very, very, very frustrating discussion about this, obviously, when it was going through the legislature. One of my favorite things that they said, it's not only those three documents that prove citizenship. There could be other ways, like someone who was there when you were born. It was unclear what else would be the document. So could you bring in the doctor who was there at your birth? Would that be enough? It might depend on the election official if they felt like that was enough. I honestly feel like they would be like, well, do we have proof? proof that you're who you say you are let's see your medical degrees if my mom goes in and she has her proof of citizenship and then it's like a russian doll like right and we have a photo so there was a lot of no no no this is not that hard but there's not there's not that many documents and it's really easy to say it's not that hard if you're someone who lives in breeze this and has lived in new hampshire your whole life and has your birth certificate and has never changed your name just it's some people some people it's not a lot it's not everyone folks who've changed their names, which in just many instances, women who get married and take their spouse's names, they are going to be impacted by this if they try to register to vote. What about if they're registered to vote and then they move to another town? Does that impact them or are they fine because they just moved? So what the law says is that if you move from one place to another, you need to show that identity again. So proof of ID, you always have to show proof of ID, even if you're registered to just going in to vote they have to make sure you are who you say you are now you are supposed to only have to show id and proof of address domicile i moved here's my new address here's my new lease my new mortgage whatnot sure id although a lot of people move and you don't change your address on your license because it's a pain they give you that paper one that no one accepts yep but you gotta show your your new address you're not supposed to have to show citizenship again because you're already registered right if they can look it up in the database to see you're already registered. Right. But a theme. I'm worried about where this sentence is going. So if you go and register maybe at City Hall, they have some time. They might probably have the ability in the system to, oh, I can look it up. I can see. There's only a few people, a couple of people in each town at most, really, who have access to that statewide database. And most people who are registering you to vote at the polling places don't have that access. Even if they did have access, a ton of polling places in New Hampshire don't have Wi-Fi. Oh, my God. You're like, can you just connect to my hotspot so I can vote, please? It's like the statewide database. They don't just give out access to everyone because it's everyone's information. It's a very serious database. But we've made this law where it's like, oh, well, if you can just check and see they're in there, you're good. But the actual process of checking to see that they're in there, that they're already registered is much easier said than done. So we did see, again, on-town meeting there were some people where they were like well we can't look you up to know that it's you so we would rather they're the election if they're kind of on the hook so our state is requiring people to go in person on election day to polling locations that in some cases do not have wi-fi to look up if they are already registered to vote and then you're stuck if you don't have those documents somewhere else correct do i dare say again that it might be voter suppression it could it could be The other piece here is that sometimes people get removed from the voter rolls. The person I was registering next to when I went to change my name during the election last year in November was standing in a very long line to update my registration, update my new last name on my registration with my marriage certificate in hand. He thought he was registered. He went, he went all the way in line. This is like 6am. He went all the way up to the front to check in and they said, we don't have you on here. Oh my

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God.

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So then they sent him back. Back to the end of the registration line where he ended up next to me. No. So this happens where if you don't vote frequently, which is a lot of people don't vote frequently. Yeah. You got removed from the voter rolls. If the last time you voted was for either Barack Obama or John McCain. You probably got, they said, not active. Not active. They removed you. So there's people who didn't, who they thought they, you know, this person might've said, well, I voted in 2012. Like I thought I was still on there or maybe he voted in 20... For one reason or another, he was removed. He wasn't aware he was removed. And for those people, again, you're probably going to the polls with your ID, but you probably are not like, oh, just in case I'll bring my birth certificate. The core to a lot of this problem, I mean, there's a lot of problems here, right? It's a self-inflicted. A lot of issues, do we dare say? Yes. Self-inflicted issues. But is that we do almost everything on election day. Like if our elections in New Hampshire are like a house of cards, it's like all built on like this one election day card. So when things don't go well on election day, if you wait, you worked, you're like, I'm going to go after work. My polls close at seven. I'm going to get there at 545. And then you don't have something with you. Like we don't have a lot of room for error. We don't have a lot of room for, you know, it's just like this really high pressure day, which is why the town meeting snowstorms, those kind of things are such a big deal. deal because we don't really spread out the vote at all. We register probably on election day and you vote on election day and when something goes wrong on election day that's it. Like you're kind of out of luck. Why? That's terrible. Why are we doing this Mackenzie? Because New Hampshire got same day registration we said that's it. Oh no. We love election day so much we want to do 100% of the stuff on it. Doesn't this put a lot of pressure on the election officials who are like there trying to help people? It does indeed. Yes. And a lot of other states like things are run at the county level and they might have like a lot of professional staff i mean most in most places there's they're not not a lot of states where there's like oh we have so many professional staff you know a lot of people are underappreciated understaffed totally but things are run at a much larger level like a county level in new hampshire everything's at the town level and all of the election officials are town by town running their elections town by town city by city and then normally the poll workers who help kind of run things on election day make sure they're at the polling place those folks are volunteers they're often stipended stipended award I get stipend sure let's go with it yeah they just put skibbity in the dictionary we can say stipended that's fine so they're running things on election day they're up really early they're there until late in the evening so it's it's run by you know mostly volunteers who are doing this because they want to like serve their community they want to help with the elections and when there's long lines like we saw a lot of people voted in the 2024 presidential election people waited an hour two hours hours plus to register and then vote in some of these bigger towns wasn't like oh we've got a bunch of people back at the office we can bring it like the people you have it's who's there they're responsible for executing the election day and it's kind of like it is again it's like most of the registration happens you have people who register most of the voting happens there and then the other thing that's a little wonky but so for the people who do vote absentee and we've got more absentee restrictions so i guess we can talk about those too yeah the people who do vote absentee they cast their absentee ballot they're sealed in their envelopes and then they stay until election day and then they get opened on election day so again like we're not opening any envelopes until election day we're opening all up we got to do it all at once yes something we did during covid in the 2020 election was we let the election officials not open the ballots but just open up the outside envelope to make sure okay yep liz canada yep they signed their name it's completed the ballot like this is a submitted ballot and then say okay we we have our absentee ballot in from Liz Canada. They returned their ballot. And going through, so they were like opening them, they were checking. And if someone, for example, forgot to sign it, someone could call them and say, hey, they've got your ballot down here. You actually need to sign it for it to count. And that person can go, oh my gosh, I forgot. I'm going to go sign it. I want my ballot to count. I will go do it. I want my ballot to count. I went through the whole absentee voting process. I've done all those things. It's not easy. I registered. That was happening earlier in a lot of places because so many people were voting absentee. It saved a lot of time. And then on election day, They already said, oh, we know who this person is. Great. Their ballot is in. They've voted on the checklist. Run their ballot through. We stopped doing that. It was a one-time only thing because New Hampshire election day happens on election day. So now, in addition to most of the people registering on election day, most people voting on election day, we're also doing all of that processing on election day. You mentioned that there are other restrictions on absentee voting. Hot off the presses. New restrictions coming in hot. Let's hear them. So in order to vote absentee, you've got to have a reason. It's a pretty short list of reasons like I am not going to be here I cannot get to the polls yeah and you sign you have to already be registered because if you weren't registered there's like a really difficult mail process that I won't even get into because very few people use it because it's like everything else a little unwieldy so you're registered and the way it has always been you fill out the form you sign it again I attest you have to check the box like I have a disability I'm going to be out of town I have child care it's Monday in Tobarosa snowstorm all the options on there and you sign it and you attest like I I'm going to be out of town. I am who I say I am. Your clerk gets it. They mail you the ballot. You fill out your ballot. You put it in a confusing set of envelopes, which is why the inner envelope, you have to put your name, you sign it, and then that ballot would count, presumably, now that you did everything else. But we have once again also decided, we, the legislature. Not you and me. Right. Not we. New Hampshire legislators have decided that that process also wasn't hard enough for them. A majority of legislators, not all of them. They weren't like, this is, we unanimously believe this. This is a great idea. A majority of legislators said, what if you also had to prove your ID for this too? So now in order to request an absentee ballot, you need to do one of three things. Otherwise, you're not getting your ballot. They're not going to send it to you. You need to include a copy of your ID. Most people mail in the form. So I guess now you can take a picture in your phone. But then you have to print it. able to email it it is a little unclear it doesn't say you can it doesn't say you can't it might depend on your clerk so maybe you can email it in again this is we will see yep if you can't do that you can you can get it notarized a much easier process oh a notary yeah and we're also talking about people like a lot of people who will vote absentee they might not have transportation like they have disabilities they're not oh i'm just gonna while i'm running my day full of errands i might as well swing by the bank and get my thing notarized So if you don't have a copy of your ID enclosed, you can have it notarized and then that is okay. Or you can go in person. We love the face-to-face contact. Or you can go in person and request your ballot there and show them your physical ID because then they can go, okay, yep, you are, you're going to say you are, and then they'll give you a ballot. They want people to go in person so much. Is it that they want friends and relationships and community? Like, is it just like they want to talk? Because we can solve that without voter suppression. We can find a way to get people to talk to one another. So that is now, so as of September 30th. September 30th, 2025, because I don't know when this will be published. So as of September 30th, 2025. In order, when you send in your absentee ballot request, you have to do one of those things. Copy of ID, notary, go in person. So how much voter fraud in general have we seen in New Hampshire? Because there must be some explanation for why our lawmakers are spending their precious time passing laws to make it more difficult to vote. So what are they stopping? There's, you know, there's not much. Not much, like how much? This I think will be the only mention probably ever of the Heritage Foundation on your podcast. Ooh, shout out. They have a tool on their website where they... track cases of voter fraud. Okay. And you would think, oh my gosh, they have this tracker. It must be so many. It must be so many. Yeah. What does the tracker tell us? So this is from 1982 to 2025. The entire existence of my life, 1982, 2025. Yes. 27. It's not zero. People who committed fraud and then they were caught and then we have them in this database because they were prosecuted and they can't vote anymore. 27 is less than the entire number of people turned away on town meeting days in New Hampshire. This spring this past spring in new hampshire for the new law we have and again town meeting days does not include the cities like manchester nashua keen omg wow wow wow wow a lot of these cases a lot of being like there's 27 overall so like a lot a few of them are people who voted twice which again illegal should not do that don't vote twice nothing that we're passing addresses that issue they had a house in massachusetts and they had a house in New Hampshire and they voted both places. You can't do that. That's illegal. There is a system called ERIC. It's a multi-state network. And basically it compares the voter files of the different states, so the voter rolls. And it has all the information, you know, it has the name, the age, the address. So that system, a lot of states are in our neighbors in Massachusetts, Vermont, Maine, I believe are all in it, compares the list. Then if someone is registered twice, they go, alert everyone, someone's registered twice. And again, this is like, there's very few people that this has happened, but if we're really serious about cracking down on cases like these 27. In New Hampshire over the course of 43 years. In New Hampshire since 1982. It would be choosing being part of a system that can see, oh, this person's registered in both places. Because some people, they move from one place to another. They just need to be, you know, they're not trying to vote twice. They just need to be taken off. But if you do try to vote twice, you know, this type of system would catch it and would make sure, you know, New Hampshire and Massachusetts is going to notice like, hey, this person's on both the year rolls. That bill has been filed. to join that system quite a number of times and and we're super passing it the legislature has said no we don't we don't like this at all we said we don't want to give our data to anyone else the other thing that Eric requires states to do they don't like are they afraid it's a man named Eric are they afraid that all of this information is going to a guy named Eric the one guy I mean there are some conspiracies about obviously of course there are of course there are there's no reason behind it but of course there are some people in the legislature or have opposed this have said they don't like that being part of ERIC, a member state, requires the state to send a postcard to everyone who is not registered but is eligible saying, this is how you would register. Shocking. Wait, wait, wait. Let me talk that. I think my brain turned off, right? This is totally reasonable. So they don't like Mr. ERIC because it would require or it would allow, require or allow? Require the state. Require the state. the state to send a little postcard that says... A one-time postcard. A one-time postcard in the mail to say you are not registered. Here is how you can register. Correct. They are a post... That is... They're like, we want you to find out by going in person. Yes. We want you to learn the big news by going in person. Sorry, if we were to hire someone who would just stand in the town square and do it, maybe that would be better because it would be an in-person interaction. So those have been a lot of the pushback. But it just, it illuminates to me that this is not It's a lot about preventing voter fraud, because if it was, we have systems that would address the very few types of cases there are. so that they can vote. I can't wrap my head around it. I can't. And I'm also thinking of college students who are here, and this is their home. This is where they live. And I imagine that quite a few of them don't have passports yet, and they haven't moved to college with their birth certificate. Why would they go to college with their birth certificate? I was not. You're packing up for college. You're leaving home for the first time. Hey, take your most valuable document that's very difficult to replace. You're going to need it when you're in freshman English. They don't have those documents. A couple of the bills that are coming up next year specifically are focused on removing student IDs from the ability, from like those approved documents. So making it harder for college students. So, you know, we're like, in order to vote, you have to have your identity, you got to have your citizenship. You have to make sure you have something, your ID shows your name, your, you know, photo, like we know who you say, like the purpose is to who are you and are you here in front of us like is that your name right but now you know if they want to pass these things it's like oh but not that way we don't like that document one of the bills I think it allows private school and like charter school IDs but not college IDs so the University of New Hampshire a government institution would not be applicable but private school down the street would be Phillips Exeter your ID will work Plymouth State University will not No. It's great. But those are state. I mean, that to me, it seems pretty clear that it is. It's like we don't want college students to vote. But it's like the purpose of the law. If you're saying if you're if we're taking out your word, you want to make sure that everyone we see their photo so it knows it's your name. But we also don't want to accept government IDs from the state universities. Is it solving a problem or is it voter suppression? It's not solving a problem. It's not solving a problem. Maybe it's not. It's a secret third thing. Elections are coming up again in cities. They are. We had town elections in the spring. City elections are in the fall. So what do we need to know, Mackenzie? I don't live in a city. You do. Some other folks do. People should, if they are in a city or you know anyone in a city. If someone you love is in a city. Make sure they know about how you need to register to vote, like these new requirements. Take them. Pick them up and drive them to the city clerk's office. One of the benefits of being in a city is you're town or your city clerk's office is I didn't really speak for Manchester but I have to assume open more than one day a week fingers crossed which is great more opportunities to register ahead of time because I don't think especially based on the town meeting experience that people understand what is required and what was passed in the new law and like that is really really important also I think this is I mean this is just generally my advice is like be a poll worker oh sign up to work at the polls what does it mean to be a poll worker so there's a number of different jobs including some people who like help with that registration process people who tell people where to go right you gotta like this is where you enter oh if you need to register you go this way folks who help people check in yeah people who you know they'll give you they'll take your little chip and give you your ballot counting ballots at the end of the night or like helping with that process at the end of the night helping people make sure they put the ballots in the machine and they go in the machine there's a lot of jobs that exist at the polling place and again like these are our elections are run by volunteers basically Basically, that's a great way to be involved and to make sure that, again, because we have so much pressure on election day, more hands to be able to make sure we don't have long lines and people have assistance. And having people who want people to be able to vote is a benefit at the polls. That's being an American, right? Like, don't we care about that? Am I wrong? Have I not understood what our country is about? The reviews of being a poll worker and being there and getting to see the experience of people cast in their votes citizens registering for the first time and being part of the process like there are such glowing reviews really about the experience and if you want to like do something that will make you feel good and like you have helped and if this episode is really depressing to you but also you're like I want to see this work in real time yes you can make it you can make an impact we normally need poll workers basically everywhere every single election and I have volunteered at our polls by being one of the people who gives out a stick That feels like one of the most rewarding jobs. Yes, it is the best job because it's literally people are just so happy to get a sticker. And if they bring their kids, their kids get a sticker. So a listener who is as taken aback as I am, if you are someone who lives in a city or you know people who live in a city, make sure that they know about these changes because we want everyone to vote. Everyone who is eligible to vote, we want them to vote. And that might mean that they need to go get their passports or birth certificate now. Right. They got to start finding it now. Because the election is coming in those cities. And if you live in a town, you don't need to wait. You can do all of this now as well because elections are coming back around in the spring for your town, your school district. Those things are happening in the spring too. And be a poll worker. Sign up to be a poll worker. And I would say also contact your legislators because they're, again, deciding to do more. Maybe meet with them in person. They're super interesting. into meeting in person so why not set up a meeting in person the third Saturday of the month from 10 to 12 and talk to them about like we don't we don't want this we want to be able to vote and cast our ballots fairly and to not have people turned away from participating because again not long ago just last year it was if you didn't have these documents you would sign a legal form saying I am the This person, these are all true. And if I am not telling you the truth, I am in huge legal trouble. Yep. And they took that option away. The state lawmakers who voted for this took that away. And the governor signed it and said that was okay. Signed it. Okay. Mackenzie, thank you so much for infuriating me so very much in such a short amount of time. We didn't even get to talk about what we would do to be better. Oh my God. We have to have a follow-up. We need a follow-up of like, maybe after the city elections, maybe that would be a good time to come back and be like, how did it go? How How do we stop doing 100% of our stuff on one day? There's a song from Dreamgirls, One Night Only. This is my musical theater reference. That's like the theme of Election Day in New Hampshire in voting rights. Wow. I can't believe that this is a thing that happens. So big party on Election Day. Bring your passport and your birth

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certificate.

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Yes.

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He got a lot of shout outs on the homeless episode, too, because he's so smart. Compete on who gets more listens on our episodes. It'll probably be housing. It'll probably be housing? I think so. I don't know. That's the hot topic. It's the hot topic. That's what everyone wants to talk about. But our democracy is crumbling, so voting is also really interesting right now. It's also a hot topic. Can we ever vote again? People should care about it.