A federal judge has struck down a New Hampshire law that blocked new voters from using a sworn affidavit to prove their citizenship in the absence of official documents such as a birth certificate or passport.
The decision, filed late Thursday by Judge Samantha D. Elliott of the U.S. District Court in New Hampshire, found that “eliminating the affidavits” as a means of proving citizenship “constitutes an unjustifiable burden on the right to vote in violation of the First and 14th Amendments.” The ruling immediately overturned the law, which was passed in 2024 and signed by the Republican governor at the time, Chris Sununu.
A spokesman for New Hampshire’s Justice Department said the state intended to appeal the decision.
The law “represents a common-sense approach to voter registration and election administration designed to protect the integrity of our elections,” the spokesman, Michael Garrity, said in a statement on Friday.
The law, which created some of the strictest voter registration requirements in the country, was challenged by the American Civil Liberties Union of New Hampshire on behalf of several groups, including the League of Women Voters of New Hampshire.
“New Hampshire’s elections have always been safe, secure and accurate,” Henry Klementowicz, the state A.C.L.U.’s deputy legal director, said in a statement. “This law could have unconstitutionally and needlessly prevented thousands of eligible voters from casting a ballot.”
Reports of wrongful voting in the state did not decline after the law’s passage, Judge Elliott noted, with a similar number of reports filed with the state attorney general in the year before the law was passed, and the year after.
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