Election Alert for October 30, 2012 7 Days and Counting..

New Hampshire needs you please be sure to vote on Tuesday, November 6.

Know Your Rights Before You Go to the Polls All New Hampshire residents who are United States citizens and who will be 18 years of age or older on Election Day, November 6th, are eligible to vote. The right to vote is not changed by the Photo ID Law. http://sos.nh.gov

Your most fundamental right is that of being able to vote for who you want to represent you. You can vote in NH if you are domiciled here You can vote with or without a photo ID You can vote in NH if you are student who is domiciled here (see http://sos.nh.gov/nhsos_content.aspx?id=12816 for information regarding college students voting rights in New Hampshire) You can vote in NH if you only recently moved here there is no minimum period of time you are required to have lived here in order to vote

If you have questions about your eligibility to vote, how to register to vote, or where and when to vote please visit the Secretary of States website at http://sos.nh.gov/VoterRegFAQ.aspx. You may already be familiar with much of what this Election Alert offers. Heres what you can do to help ensure the rights of others are preserved: Clip the list of tips at the end of this Election Alert, copy it and hand it out to every potential voter you come in contact with between now and next Tuesday. The current New Hampshire legislature did, indeed, pass a photo ID bill this year but you do not need one to vote on Tuesday, November 6. If you forget your

identification or choose not to show one, you will be asked to sign a challenged voter affidavit affirming that you are a legal resident of the town or district in which you are voting. The Secretary of States office will, following the election, send a request to you asking for confirmation that it was you who voted and that you are who you say you are. (NOTE: If, within 90 days, you fail to respond to the Secretary of States request for confirmation, the matter will be turned over to the Attorney Generals office for investigation.) During and following the primary election on September 11, a time in which New Hampshire voters were not required to show any identification, a number of voters recounted experiences at their polling location at which they were turned away for failing to show identification. Just this week, I was told by an individual who I trust that he was told he had to produce his identification if he wanted to vote at an area polling place. Although he challenged the ballot clerk, she withheld his ballot until he went back to his car to retrieve his license. This was not legal then and it will not be legal in the general election.You will be asked to produce identification for the general election. Any of the following forms of identification are acceptable for this election (there will be changes to this list after September, 2013):

Drivers license issued by any state, even if expired ID card issued by NH Division of Motor Vehicles US Armed Services ID card US passport, even if expired Valid photo ID issued by the federal, state, county or municipal government Valid student ID card Other photo ID deemed legitimate by the supervisor of the checklist, the moderator or the clerk, or Verification of identity by the supervisor of the checklist, the moderator or the clerk

If you do not have one of the above forms of identification or choose not to show one, you will be asked to complete the aforementioned challenged voter affidavit.NOTE: Vouchers for a free voter identification card are available at your town/city clerks office. These vouchers can be taken to the NH Division of Motor Vehicles for a state-issued card useable for voting purposes only. If you already have a valid drivers license or non-drivers identification issued by the DMV you will not be eligible to receive a free voter ID card. Have You Registered to Vote Yet? Are you Sure? New Hampshire law allows voters to register to vote on Election Day. If you have not yet registered to vote, you will now need to do so on November 6. The last day to have registered at your town office was Saturday, October 27.

However, you may believe you are already registered. And, you might be right -- or not. While there might be a number of explanations for why your name doesnt appear on your local voter list, two that could explain that phenomenon this year include 1. your name has been purged from the list or 2. you have received misleading information. Been Purged? What Now? O.K., quick now when was the last time you voted? If the last election in which you voted comes immediately to mind then your name is probably on the voter list. If, on the other hand, you are struggling to recall whether Bush or Gore or Bush or Kerry was on the ballot, you might find you have been purged. No, thats not punishment for not voting, nor is it a conspiracy to thwart your attempts to vote at least not here in New Hampshire. It is simply part of a once-a-decade cleansing to try to update and make accurate our voter lists. This past year was clean up year for voter lists. Every ten years the Secretary of States office purges voter lists of those who have not cast ballots in either of the last two state elections or any local election in the same period and have not responded to a notice mailed to their address. This years purge resulted in dropping more than 163,000 names from voter lists. If your name has been dropped from the voter lists, you can still register on November 6, Election Day and will be allowed to vote. Bring a photo identification and proof of residency or domicile. Or, Youve Been Bamboozled! Despite well-coordinated efforts by our current New Hampshire legislature and in about 23 other state legislatures around the country to put up as many barriers to voting as possible and to disenfranchise students and other groups of citizens from voting (groups who just happen to tend to vote for Democrats), most of the efforts have been unsuccessful. We do have the new voter ID law noted above being phased in but court rulings have preserved and clarified students rights to vote in New Hampshire in the upcoming general election. So, what do you do when you fail at changing laws to gain the desired outcome? If your real agenda is to stack the deck for candidates and issues that are important to you and you dont really care about democracy, you just cheat, of course. And, that is precisely what several groups, some anonymous and some named (i.e., Focus on the Family and RX NH according to Deputy Secretary of State David Scanlon) are doing.

Mailings from these groups mislead potential voters to register to vote or vote absentee using a counterfeit application form which is enclosed in the mailing. Some of these groups have gone to considerable lengths to disguise what they are doing by designing the mailing to look like an official request from the voters town clerk, including the clerks name and the town hall as a return address. NEW HAMPSHIRE LAW REQUIRES THAT A VOTER MUST REGISTER IN PERSON. YOU CANNOT REGISTER BY MAIL NO MATTER WHEN OR WHWERE YOU REGISTER TO VOTE, YOU WILL BE REQUIRED TO FILL OUT A STANDARD VOTER REGISTRATION FORM, AND YOU WILL BE ASKED TO SHOW PROOF OF IDENTITY, AGE, CITIZENSHIP, AND DOMICILE. THESE QUALIFICATIONS MAY BE ESTABLISHED BY SIGNING AFFIDAVITS. (NH SECRETARY OF STATE WEBSITE) Organizations have also mailed out phony absentee ballots! If you have returned one of them , the ballot will not be accepted and you will have forfeited your voting rights. Absentee voting is allowed in instances in which the voter will either be out of the area or otherwise unable to physically go to the polls. Obtaining an official ballot must be done through your Town Clerk and must be returned to the Town Office in the official envelopes, with the legal affidavit signed by you. Each absentee ballot is numbered and therefore controlled by your Town Official. Again, if you find you have not been officially registered to vote, you will be allowed to do so on Election Day. If you have not officially requested an absentee ballot from your town clerk and filled out an affidavit as to the reason for requesting an absentee ballot, then you have not cast a legitimate absentee ballot. Know Your Ballot As Well Take a few minutes in the next seven days to download your ballot from the Secretary of States website:
http://sos.nh.gov/Elections/Election_Information/2012_Elections/General_Election/Sample_PAPER_Ballots__2012_General_Election.aspx.

This will give you an opportunity to review the candidates for each office. In fact, it is a good idea to print out a copy of the ballot, determine who you will vote for in advance, check those names and bring your copy with you. Not surprisingly, most of us dont know everyone on the ballot and can easily forget what we may have learned about some candidates, especially those down ballot for less high profile offices, and taking along a copy of a completed sample ballot ensures the outcomes we want. Please remember that your ballot will contain three ballot questions: a permanent ban

on an income tax, a legislative preemption of court rules and a decision as to whether to hold a constitutional convention. These have been detailed and discussed in previous Election Alerts. My recommendation on each of these has been to vote no on all three. If you have any specific questions about these, please dont hesitate to get in touch with me. ELECTION TIPS: 1. SPREAD THE NEWS: Make sure folks are aware of the phony registration forms and absentee ballots and that they dont get duped. 2. Be ready to call the AG hot line if a problem arises on Election Day: its free and easy. It's a toll-free number: 1-866-868-3703. 3. Call the Secretary of State at 271-3242 and report any suspicious mailings you receive or with any questions regarding the process Clip and Pass Along

Know Your Voting Rights

Your most precious right is your right to vote. Nobody has the right to take this away from you. You can register to vote on Election Day. You will be asked for identification on Election Day, but may vote without it by signing a challenged voter affidavit. You cannot be denied your right to vote if you do not have a photo ID with you on Election Day. There is no minimum requirement of how long you must live here before being allowed to vote. You must be domiciled in the state in order to vote and you must vote where you are domiciled. Domicile is defined as that place, more than any other, where you sleep most nights of the year, or to which you intend to return after a temporary absence. Valid forms of identification include a drivers license (including one from another state as well as an expired license) or non-drivers photo ID, student or military ID, government ID, US passport (even if expired) and any other acceptable by the supervisor of the checklist, the moderator or the clerk.

If you believe someone has attempted to prevent you from exercising your right to vote, report such an incident to the Attorney General at 1-866-8683703.

Paid for by Jackie Cilley for New Hampshire. Bruce R. Cilley, Treasurer. PO Box 262, Barrington, NH 03825. Stay in touch on Facebook and Twitter Click here to unsubscribe