Committee hears debate over SB 287, which would require ID or notarization for some absentee mailings

Senate Election Law and Municipal Affairs Committee members heard competing views on Senate Bill 287 on the question of requiring a photo identification or notarized signature when an absentee ballot is requested to be mailed to an address other than the voter’s registration address.

Sponsor Senator Howard Pearl, R-District 17, told the committee “we had a very clear directive from the voters last fall that election integrity was important,” and said the bill would require a voter who asks that an absentee ballot be mailed to a different address to “provide either a photo ID or a notarized signature that you are who you are and you’re asking for this ballot to be mailed to you.”

The bill’s backers pointed to a 2016 review of absentee requests that identified many absentee ballots mailed to the same out-of-state addresses as a reason to tighten verification for that subset of applications. Representative Greg Hill, chair of the House Legislative Administration Committee, described the HAVA-related data and said the study found “in the 2016 election, 14,418 absentee ballots were mailed in this fashion, to addresses outside New Hampshire,” and that some single addresses received multiple ballots. Hill added the data point did not prove fraud but said it merited further investigation and that requiring photo ID or notarization for ballots mailed to other-than-checklist addresses was a narrow response.

Voting-rights and civic groups, disability advocates and civil liberties lawyers urged defeat. Kaylee Abstradio, a Durham voter and public policy fellow with Open Democracy, said SB 287 “introduces an unnecessary and burdensome hurdle to the absentee ballot voting process” and warned the requirement would disproportionately affect “elderly, disabled, student, and military voters.” Liz Centarelli of the League of Women Voters of New Hampshire said notaries can be difficult to access abroad and cited the Saunders/Saucedo litigation as a caution about signature-matching procedures.

Multiple witnesses, including Henry Clementowich, deputy legal director at the American Civil Liberties Union of New Hampshire, pointed to the 2018 federal court litigation Saucedo v. Gardner. Clementowich said the federal court “issued a permanent injunction” (the court’s injunction remains in place unless lifted by a federal court) blocking the State’s signature‑matching scheme and found problems including “lack of uniformity among election officials, lack of training in handwriting analysis, [and] lack of guidance.” He said SB 287 does not address those issues and that the injunctive relief remains a high legal bar for any new enforcement plan.

Secretary of State David Scanlon told the committee the bill’s text is permissive rather than mandatory; it would allow — but not require — a voter to present photo ID in person or to provide a notarized application. Scanlon said the measure “gives the voter assurance that when the moderator and the clerk in a town receives their absentee ballot, that it is going to be counted because it’s already verified,” and it could help local officials when processing ballots. He also reiterated the Saucedo decision’s legal effect and questioned whether signature-matching as a remedy remains enforceable.

Opponents stressed practical barriers. David Trimble, a resident of Ware, argued the bill would require travel and potential fees for voters who do not have printers, transportation or easy access to a notary, and cited court testimony in Saucedo that hundreds were previously disenfranchised when signature-matching was used. Other witnesses noted common legitimate reasons a voter might want a ballot mailed to a different address — temporary hospitalization, rehabilitation, study abroad, military service or travel — and said those voters could be burdened by the proposed verification steps.

Committee members asked questions about the time period and data underlying the HAVA review, and sponsors and opponents discussed alternate approaches. Representative Hill said he would be comfortable with either collecting a driver’s license number under a companion bill (Senate Bill 213 was mentioned) or accepting notarization. Several witnesses, including the League and ACLU, urged the committee to consider the legal limits created by Saucedo v. Gardner and to weigh the scarcity of documented absentee-ballot fraud in New Hampshire against the burden that additional requirements would place on voters.

The committee closed public testimony on SB 287 and moved to other bills; no committee recommendation on SB 287 was recorded in the transcript during the hearing.

Ending: The items discussed included both possible statutory fixes and legal constraints from federal court rulings. Sponsors urged additional verification for a narrow subset of absentee requests; voting-rights advocates and civil‑liberties lawyers warned of legal and practical barriers. The committee kept the bill under consideration through the hearing process; no final vote on SB 287 was taken in the recorded session.