New Hampshire: GOP bid to require documentary proof of citizenship struck down

New Hampshire Republicans’ attempt to prevent voters from using signed affidavits to comply with the state’s proof-of-citizenship requirement is unconstitutional, a federal judge ruled Thursday.

Had it remained in place, the GOP provision would have made voting more difficult by requiring voters to provide documentary proof of citizenship to register.

A documentary proof of citizenship requirement is central to the SAVE America Act, the extreme voter suppression bill that President Donald Trump has said should be the GOP’s top national priority.

U.S. District Judge Samantha Elliott, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, found that GOP lawmakers’ attempt to eliminate affidavits as a way for New Hampshire voters to prove their citizenship was an “unjustifiable burden on the right to vote in violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments.”

Elliott stressed that, over several years, a significant number of New Hampshire voters who lack access to their proof-of-citizenship documents have instead relied on the state’s Qualified Voter Affidavit (QVA) to comply with the requirement. 

The judge also said the method was not, as many Republicans have described it, an “exception” to the law because the voters face criminal prosecution if they lie about their citizenship status.

After state Republicans eliminated the QVA method through a new, draconian voting law in 2024, voting rights advocates and state and local election officials warned that eligible voters would be disenfranchised by the abrupt change.

Elliott noted that municipal elections in the state last year bore out those concerns. In her order, she highlighted trial testimony from employees of the nonpartisan New Hampshire Campaign for Voting Rights, who said over 100 prospective voters were turned away in elections last year because they lacked citizenship documents and could not use the QVA.

However, the judge emphasized that more voters were likely affected.

“The record evidence does not represent the full panoply of New Hampshire voters who

were unable to register to vote in an election in 2025 because they did not possess [documentary proof of citizenship],” she wrote.

“Although the [Secretary of State’s] office and the Attorney General’s office did not attempt to track the effect of eliminating the QVA in those elections, the Secretary’s office is aware that several voters were unable to register to vote because they arrived without [documentary proof of citizenship], and at least some of them did not return to vote after they were turned away.”