In 2016, New Hampshire Gov. Maggie Hassan, a Democrat, was elected to the U.S. Senate by a 1,017-vote margin. Even though both parties spent millions on the campaign, the key to Hassan’s victory was thousands of college and university students who registered to vote and cast ballots on Election Day.
The power of student voting was noted by Republicans who took over New Hampshire’s legislative and executive branches in early 2017. They soon passed a law to suppress student voting with a sly hidden poll tax. It required out-of-state students who voted and drove to get a New Hampshire driver’s license and register their cars with the state within 60 days. The law has been challenged in court, and litigation is ongoing.
“The students don’t like this because it is a lot of money in New Hampshire,” said Linda Rhodes, who co-founded New Hampshire’s Indivisible chapter and has been working with a handful of state and national groups to […]