Federal Judge Says New Hampshire Must Make It Easier to Prove Citizenship When Registering to Vote
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — A federal judge has said that New Hampshire must make voter registration easier by allowing applicants to attest to their U.S. citizenship if they don’t have the documents to prove it. The case was seen as the first major legal test of an election reform that has been pushed nationally by President Donald Trump and has gained favor among many Republicans, though U.S. District Court Judge Samantha Elliot said she was not deciding whether requiring proof of citizenship itself is constitutional. Her ruling late Thursday night on a narrower question of New Hampshire law was significant, however, because it underscored the potential perils of implementing strict requirements for voters to document their U.S. citizenship so they can cast a ballot. Elliot found that changes in 2024 to the state voter registration law unconstitutionally removed one method of proof — namely, a voter’s sworn affidavit attesting to citizenship. “The evidence shows that this is the only method of proof available to a significant number of New Hampshire voters,” she wrote. The changes …
