Democrats are warned: Stop impeding vote
AG says national party leaders’ effort to undermine primary violates state law
CONCORD, N.H. — New Hampshire Attorney General John M. Formella sent a cease-and-desist letter Monday warning national Democrats that their recent messaging about the state’s unsanctioned early primary contest had ventured into the realm of voter suppression.
Formella’s office took issue with a letter the Democratic National Committee’s Rules and Bylaws Committee sent Jan. 5 to the New Hampshire Democratic Party. The DNC’s letter called New Hampshire’s Jan. 23 contest “meaningless” and said the state’s Democratic Party should “educate the public” about that fact.
State and national leaders have long been at loggerheads over the Democratic presidential nominating calendar. President Biden successfully nudged the DNC to recognize South Carolina, rather than New Hampshire, as having the first-in-the-nation primary. But officials in the Granite State carried on with plans for their traditional contest, in keeping with a state law that requires their primary to be held at least seven days ahead of any similar contest.
That’s why Biden is skipping New Hampshire’s contest, and the DNC is warning that Democratic candidates won’t win any delegates for their performance in the state.
Regardless of whether the DNC awards delegates, the Democratic primary in New Hampshire is not “meaningless,” and statements to the contrary are “false, deceptive, and misleading,” Formella’s office said. His letter warned that telling potential New Hampshire voters the election is “meaningless” or soliciting anyone else to make such statements violates state law by attempting to prevent or deter voters from participating.
Formella’s office said its review of this matter is ongoing. And New Hampshire Democratic Party Chair Ray Buckley confirmed that New Hampshire will conduct its primary contest as usual.
“Well, it’s safe to say in New Hampshire, the DNC is less popular than the NY Yankees,” Buckley said in a statement.
“State law requires the New Hampshire Secretary of State to conduct the first-in-the-nation primary and he is
Days after the Supreme Court said it would decide if former president Trump can remain on the 2024 ballot amid efforts in multiple states to disqualify him over his role in trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren said she prefers that voters decide his fate.
In an interview with WCVBTV on Sunday, Warren said that while she thinks it’s “pretty clear that Donald Trump participated in an insurrection,” she wants to “beat him at the ballot box.”
“I want to see it resolved at the ballot box because I don’t want there to be any question about the legitimacy of it,” said Warren, a Cambridge Democrat.
Asked if Trump would still question the election’s legitimacy by claiming the election was “stolen,” Warren replied that “of course he will.”
“But it’s not just what he says, it’s what everybody else sees,” she said, before launching into a comparison of Trump and Biden’s political accomplishments.
On Friday, the Supreme Court agreed to take up Trump’s appeal of a Colorado court’s 4-3 ruling that he is ineligible to appear on the state’s ballot under the Constitution’s insurrection clause. In its decision, the Supreme Court recognized the need to act quickly in the case since state primaries are approaching. They’ll hear arguments in early February.
Trump has also appealed a decision by Maine’s secretary of state to remove him from the state’s presidential primary ballot. Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, a Democrat, ruled last month that Trump violated the 14th Amendment’s Section 3, which bans from office those who “engaged in insurrection.”
Those cases are among dozens of similar efforts in multiple states to disqualify Trump from Republican presidential primary ballots, including a lawsuit from a liberal group in Massachusetts.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll last month found that Trump holds strong support from his party’s voters, with 61 percent of selfidentifying Republicans saying they would choose him over rivals Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy, and Chris Christie.