Ross Berry
Role at the time: New Hampshire House Election Law Committee chair
Statement summary
Berry defends HB 323 as applying the same identification standard to college students and other voters and criticizes the lawsuit as seeking an exemption.
“college students are not a special class of voters ... Our common-sense law holds everyone, college student or otherwise, to the same standard ... There are no exemptions for favored groups. Going to court to demand otherwise undermines the very principle of equality under the law.”
Why we used this label
The reference point is the state's categorical exclusion of student IDs from consideration under existing identity-verification safeguards, the rule in the April 23 directive that the district court blocked on October 2. Berry's August statement defends the law as holding everyone "to the same standard" and says "Going to court to demand otherwise undermines the very principle of equality under the law." The lawsuit then sought to block both HB 323 and the directive, which applied the law as a complete bar on the cards. Berry argues that no exemption for students is justified, so we labeled it Defended or excused. Berry does not separately address whether officials may consider the cards with other evidence, a distinction the court drew in October. The closest competing label is Challenged the characterization, since Berry rejects treating students as "a special class"; it loses because the statement argues for keeping student IDs out rather than only disputing a description.