You're listening to the American Democracy Minute, keeping our government by and for the people. After months of promising an open and fair process, the NH Senate Election Law Committee voted last Monday to recommend two rigged voting districts for U.S. Congress and NH Executive Council to the full Senate. The NH Senate will vote on the gerrymander…

You're listening to the Open Democracy Minute, keeping Granite State government by and for the people. It will be a light schedule in the NH Legislature this week, but we have a heavy topic to discuss: “Provisional Ballots”. Senate Bill 418 had a hearing a few weeks ago and is coming up for a committee vote on March 7. One of many “Stop the Steal” …

You're listening to the Open Democracy Minute, keeping Granite State government by and for the people. We billed last week’s report as a “reckoning” for NH Redistricting, which turned out to be only partially true. February 14, as expected, the majority in NH Senate Election Law & Municipal Affairs committee did approve a modestly amended NH House …

You're listening to the Open Democracy Minute, keeping Granite State government by and for the people. We expect a week of reckoning on the NH redistricting process. Public statements by Governor Chris Sununu asked for changes to the gerrymandered Congressional map, one of a suite of rigged maps for NH Senate, Executive Council and NH House. The Ho…

You're listening to the Open Democracy Minute, keeping Granite State government by and for the people. A small but vocal group of Stop the Steal activists have been making the rounds in New Hampshire. As a voter, you have reason to be concerned. For some weeks, proponents of the Big Lie of voter fraud narrative have been organizing a “petitioned wa…

You're listening to the Open Democracy Minute, keeping Granite State government by and for the people. A fascinating NH Senate Election Law & Municipal Affairs committee hearing on Monday, as the House-approved Congressional & NH House voting districts had a public hearing. The House-approved HB 50 NH House district map has been updated with an ame…

You're listening to the Open Democracy Minute, keeping Granite State government by and for the people. Happy Granny D Day, honoring America’s campaign finance reformer Doris “Granny D” Haddock on her January 24 birthday. There are two good bills in the NH Legislature this week, after the two previous weeks of Big Lie-fueled voter suppression bills.…

You're listening to the Open Democracy Minute, keeping Granite State government by and for the people. It’s only January 17th, and already this year the majority in the NH House has passed gerrymandered House & Congressional maps, and introduced several bills based on fabricated accusations of voter fraud. HB 1542 and SB 418 try to bypass New Hamps…

You're listening to the Open Democracy Minute, keeping Granite State government by and for the people. The NH House had its full session last week, Jan 5th, 6th & 7th and started with parliamentary trickery by moving their redistricting bills from Thursday to Wednesday. With 20 Democrats not voting, the gerrymandered Congressional districts were pa…

You're listening to the Open Democracy Minute, keeping Granite State government by and for the people. A big week in redistricting coming up in New Hampshire. The full NH House meets this Wednesday, Thursday and possibly Friday to consider overrides on gubernatorial vetoes, votes on bills retained in committee at the end of the 2021 session, and re…

You're listening to the Open Democracy Minute, keeping Granite State government by and for the people. While we await the return of the U.S. Senate to Washington for further action on the filibuster rules and the Freedom to Vote Act, back here in New Hampshire, the gerrymandered Congressional and House voting district map proposals come up for a fu…

You're listening to the Open Democracy Minute, keeping Granite State government by and for the people. After months of letters, calls and emails from constituents asking her to change or abolish the filibuster, and to support the Freedom to Vote Act, U.S. Senator Maggie Hassan came out forcefully this past week on the Senate floor, and in a subsequ…

You're listening to the Open Democracy Minute, keeping Granite State government by and for the people. This past week, President Joe Biden convened the Summit for Democracy, a virtual meeting of world democracies. Democracy activists in the U.S. are hopeful that President Biden will do what it takes to protect democratic institutions by pressuring …

You're listening to the Open Democracy Minute, keeping Granite State government by and for the people. Holidays or no, there is one month left before the full NH House votes on the gerrymandered Congressional maps, and NH House maps that kept 53 NH towns from getting their own Constitutionally-guaranteed districts. Activist groups around the state …

You're listening to the Open Democracy Minute, keeping Granite State government by and for the people. While New Hampshire activists gear up to fight the NH GOP-proposed gerrymandered voting districts, the bill in Washington which would end gerrymandering, the Freedom to Vote Act, has been blocked so far by a GOP filibuster in the U.S. Senate. The …

You're listening to the Open Democracy Minute, keeping Granite State government by and for the people. Hearings in the NH House Special Committee on Redistricting were held last week on proposed Democratic and Republican maps for NH House, U.S. Congress, and County Commissions. The bombshell GOP map proposal that severely gerrymandered the Congress…

You're listening to the Open Democracy Minute, keeping Granite State government by and for the people. After months of claiming there would be a fair, transparent process, the majority in the NH House Special Committee on redistricting dropped a gerrymandering bomb on the voting districts for US Congress. Earlier this year, a widely-reported commen…

You're listening to the Open Democracy Minute, keeping Granite State government by and for the people. This past weekend, the Map-a-Thon Coaltion, a group of over 250 NH voters who have been working since May, released their NH House voting district maps for review by the public. The group had previously released maps for the NH Executive Council, …

You're listening to the Open Democracy Minute, keeping Granite State government by and for the people. As expected, the move to debate the Freedom to Vote Act in the US Senate was stonewalled with the filibuster, adding more pressure to change or abolish the archaic Senat rule. Eager to get a win, even President Biden expressed openness to changing…

You're listening to the Open Democracy Minute, keeping Granite State government by and for the people. It appears that the Freedom to Vote Act will get its first of a number of votes in the U.S. Senate later this week. The first move will be to allow debate on the Freedom to Vote Act, which allow the larger public to learn more about the bill’s pro…

You're listening to the Open Democracy Minute, keeping Granite State government by and for the people. Updates again this week on the Freedom to Vote Act, and NH redistricting. Both are critical to restoring honest elections in New Hampshire, and both are under threat by anti-voter factions. The Freedom to Vote Act took a blow this week from the NH…

You're listening to the Open Democracy Minute, keeping Granite State government by and for the people. First a national update. The For the People Act, now revised as a new bill called the Freedom to Vote Act has been put on the back burner while dealing with the debt ceiling, and while Democrats squabble over the size and scope of the social infra…

You're listening to the Open Democracy Minute, keeping Granite State government by and for the people. Two down, seven more to go. With the Merrimack & Strafford county hearings complete, there was not, unsurprisingly, a single person who testified that gerrymandering New Hampshire's voting districts was a good idea. Instead, voters talked about ho…

You're listening to the Open Democracy Minute, keeping Granite State government by and for the people. This Wednesday is the second public “listening session” for the Special Committee on Redistricting, held at the Strafford County Courthouse at 6 p.m. Sept. 22. At last week's hearing in Merrimack County, citizens testifying asked for a fair proces…

You're listening to the Open Democracy Minute, keeping Granite State government by and for the people. While the state legislature's Special Committee on Redistricting has just started learning how to use its software, the Map-a-Thon citizen mapping project is already busy collecting information and drawing fair, nonpartisan maps. Its next meeting …

You're listening to the Open Democracy Minute, keeping Granite State government by and for the people. This week's minute was supposed to be about the citizen-drawn redistricting map project called the Map-a-Thon, which meets on Sept. 7, but that will have to wait another week. Instead, the NH House Special Committee on Redistricting met last Wedne…

You're listening to the Open Democracy Minute, keeping Granite State government by and for the people. Last Friday, the NH Special Committee on Redistricting announced its third meeting, this Wednesday, Aug. 25th at 10 am, and indicated that's its agenda is a discussion of the homegrown 2011 software selected by the committee to draw new voting dis…

You're listening to the Open Democracy Minute, keeping Granite State government by and for the people. After bruising negotiations to pass the infrastructure, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer put off last week's expected vote on the for the People Act until the week of September 13, and recessed for the remainder of August. Before that dec…

You're listening to the Open Democracy Minute, keeping Granite State government by and for the people. As of last Friday, Aug. 6, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has delayed the U.S. Senate's August recess to force action on the infrastructure bill. Next on the agenda before the break may be a vote on one version of the For the People Act amen…

You're listening to the Open Democracy Minute, keeping Granite State government by and for the people. Last week, we told you that NH Governor Chris Sununu had a choice to make on SB 89, a bill which had been amended to disallow any provisions of the federal For the People Act in state elections. Governor Sununu chose Friday to SIGN SB 89, saying t…

You're listening to the Open Democracy Minute, keeping Granite State government by and for the people. Democracy advocates are predicting that votes on changing the filibuster rules and a subsequent vote to pass the S.1 For the People Act are expected in the United States Senate by the end of July. With President Biden's speech last week calling fo…

You're listening to the Open Democracy Minute, keeping Granite State government by and for the people. This past Saturday in Portsmouth, NH, Open Democracy hosted its annual Seacoast Walk & Rally, this year devoted to the 50th anniversary of the 26th amendment, giving 18-year-olds the franchise to vote and run for office. A momentus event to celebr…

You're listening to the Open Democracy Minute, keeping Granite State government by and for the people. The U.S. Census Bureau will release town-level population data in its legacy format beginning in August. Last Tuesday, the NH legislature's Special Committee on Redistricting which will use that data to draw new voting maps met for the second time…

You're listening to the Open Democracy Minute, keeping Granite State government by and for the people. If you listened to the press last week, you may have heard that the sweeping democracy-saving voting rights & anti-corruption bill, the S.1 For the People Act is dead. As Mark Twain said, “The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.” Last wee…

You're listening to the Open Democracy Minute, keeping Granite State government by and for the people. This Wednesday or Thursday, the U.S. Senate takes its first vote on the H.R. 1 / S.1 for the People Act, the largest democracy-saving bill in 50 years, and possibly in American history.. With the over new 400 state laws now proposed to maliciously…

You're listening to the Open Democracy Minute, keeping Granite State government by and for the people. A follow up from last week on some of the bills which passed in the NH House & Senate. We were awaiting the “concur” votes on bills which passed with amendments, forcing them to return to the originating body to “concur” with the changes made. Som…

You're listening to the Open Democracy Minute, keeping Granite State government by and for the people. We told you last week about the remaining Democracy bills before the full NH House last Thursday. There's some good news and some bad news. We're glad that SB 46 passed, a bill which allows towns to use electronic check in when you vote, after yea…