The Kelly Ayotte/Maggie Hassan U.S. Senate contest will likely be a close affair. Hopefully a clear winner will emerge, as contested results with attendant recounts are expensive and emotionally draining. Recall New Hampshire’s 1974 Durkin/Wyman Senate election, which took a year to resolve.
I can personally attest that every vote matters in a close election, as my own 2014 state representative contest ended in a tie. I lost by one vote in the recount.
The integrity of our process is crucial. Stolen elections cause wars in other countries and massive cynicism in this one. Voter fraud threatens our democracy.
And the Granite State is particularly at risk.
Liberal, same-day voter registration policies here invite abuse. More than 35,000 voters registered on the last Election Day. And most of them voted Democrat. Out-of-state college students who voted via absentee ballots in their home states got a second vote in New Hampshire. Appalling.
Google “voter fraud” and you’ll find countless alleged and documented examples of these sorry practices. The vast majority of these crimes are committed by Democrats. To quote Casey Stengel, “You can look it up.”
Principled New Hampshire Democrats, such as Secretary of State Bill Gardner, have long acknowledged the fraud, and our Legislature sought to re-establish voting integrity with Senate Bill 179, calling for common sense residency requirements.
Sadly, SB 179 was vetoed by . . . Gov. Hassan!
Ever the practitioners of identity politics, Democrats accuse reformers of seeking to suppress minority voters – or in New Hampshire’s case, the “poor,” given the dearth of minority voters here.
Such accusations are nonsensical, but the prospect of Sen. Ayotte being cheated out of re-election is frightening to her many supporters.
As a practical matter, a Hassan victory would hurt New Hampshire in many ways beyond her policy votes. With Congress likely to remain Republican, New Hampshire would not be well-served by an all-Democrat congressional delegation.
A couple years ago, I was pleased to get a bipartisan letter signed by both Sens. Ayotte and Shaheen advocating for a N.H. development project. There’s value to having a senator from each party. Imagine a Sen. Hassan voting for 99 percent of Obama/Clinton policies – like Sen. Shaheen. What a dreary prospect.
Democrats even joke about stealing elections, as when John F. Kennedy shared that his father warned him not to buy a single vote more than necessary, quoting old Joe Kennedy as saying, “I’ll be damned if I’m going to pay for a landslide.”
But a landslide may indeed be the answer for New Hampshire in 2016. If Sen. Ayotte could win in a landslide – as she did in 2010 – there will be no controversy. And then a new governor can sign off on election reform.
Louis Wyman and John Durkin would no doubt approve.
(Loudon’s Mike Moffett is a retired Marine Corps officer, professor and author.)