politics

“Telling any person qualified to register to vote or vote in New Hampshire that the January 23, 2024, New Hampshire democratic Presidential Primary Election is ‘meaningless’... constitutes an attempt to prevent or deter New Hampshire voters from participating [in the primary]... in violation of RSA 659:40, III,” Assistant Attorney General Brendan O’Donnell wrote in the order to the DNC, citing a portion of the state’s voting rights law.

RSA 659:40, III:

No person shall engage in voter suppression by knowingly attempting to prevent or deter another person from voting or registering to vote based on fraudulent, deceptive, misleading, or spurious grounds or information. Prohibited acts of voter suppression include:

(a) Challenging another person's right to register to vote or to vote based on information that he or she knows to be false or misleading.

(b) Attempting to induce another person to refrain from registering to vote or from voting by providing that person with information that he or she knows to be false or misleading.

(c) Attempting to induce another person to refrain from registering to vote or from voting at the proper place or time by providing information that he or she knows to be false or misleading about the date, time, place, or manner of the election.

Seems like the AG is really stretching. Calling it "meaningless" is almost certainly protected by the 1st Amendment.

This is much ado about nothing. While I agree that they shouldn't publicly call any vote "meaningless," for fear that it causes voter apathy, this is a miscommunication that has to do with scheduling and how they will spend their energy on campaign efforts.

Wut

This is the best summary I could come up with:

The back-and-forth is the latest fallout from the DNC’s attempt, under direction from President Joe Biden, to demote the New Hampshire primary for his party.

The party committee working on the calendar stunned observers and insiders alike, however, when it announced that Biden had communicated his desire to have South Carolina go first, which would demote New Hampshire, a change few expected.

New Hampshire’s secretary of state, a Republican, set the primary’s date for Jan. 23, knowing it would be out of compliance with DNC rules.

“The NHDP must take steps to educate the public that January 23rd is a non-binding presidential preference event and is meaningless and the NHDP and presidential candidates should take all steps possible not to participate,” the committee’s co-chairs, Jim Roosevelt and Minyon Moore, wrote in their letter, warning that “non-compliant processes can disenfranchise and confuse voters.”

So the Republican secretary of state and attorney general rushed to the defense of Buckley, the Democratic Party chair, who in turn promoted their counterpunch on social media and in the press.

“Well, it’s safe to say in New Hampshire, the DNC is less popular than the NY Yankees,” Buckley said of his Red Sox-loving New England state.

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