NH House endorses early state primary
Apr. 8—BEDFORD — The House of Representatives, largely along partisan lines, voted to move up the state primary election to late June over claims the change would be inconvenient to voters and could complicate plans for redistricting.
Only two states — Delaware and Louisiana — have later primary dates than New Hampshire, whose 2020 primary was Sept. 8. It's always on the second Tuesday of September.
The amended bill (HB 98) would move the primary up to the fourth Tuesday in June.
The 195-174 vote in the House moved this bill to the state Senate, where it faces an uncertain future.
State Rep. Fenton Groen, R-Rochester, said the change would bring New Hampshire in line with the rest of the country as 31 states hold primaries before the end of June every election year.
This change would also lengthen the general election campaign from eight to 20 weeks, giving candidates more time to appeal to non-primary voters, Groen said.
"This does not shorten the time the candidate has to campaign for a primary. They can campaign as early as they like, even before the candidate filing period," Groen said.
Rep. Paul Bergeron, D-Nashua, said this would wreak havoc with city and town clerks as they'd have to host a candidate filing period in April, in some cases only days after completing municipal and school budget meetings.
The earlier date will also give independent and third-party candidates less time to collect signatures to qualify for their names to appear on the November general election ballot.
"This earlier primary will be a great inconvenience to our voters," said Bergeron, the retired longtime city clerk in Nashua.
Gov. Chris Sununu, a three-term Republican, said he doesn't like the idea.
"We have a very unique system here in New Hampshire. I am not for moving the primary," Sununu said.
"If you start pushing it way out to June, we become a lot more like everyone else... If it ain't broke, don't fix it."
Bergeron said the change would require voters in seven towns to hold special elections later this year to make adjustments in their ward boundaries to account for changes from the Census.
Under the current election calendar, those municipal boundary changes could be voted on in 2022 before the September primary, Bergeron said.
Groen pointed out the bill permits Secretary of State Bill Gardner to alter the primary date and filing period next year if the scheduling of city election boundary changes presents a problem.
During a public hearing on this and related bills, Deputy Secretary of State David Scanlan said the state has had its September primary since 2010 and it's worked well.
