President Joe Biden recently won the New Hampshire Democratic primary without being included on the ballot. With his name written nearly 80,000 times, Biden secured 65.5% of the Democratic vote.
The unusual event occurred when the Democratic National Convention (DNC), which is the ultimate voice on how the nominee for their party gets chosen, selected South Carolina to take the first primary slot. This choice, which was backed by Biden, came after the 2020 South Carolina primary practically resuscitated the president’s last campaign with 39 delegates.
According to New Hampshire, this decision violated a 1975 state law that declared that the state’s presidential primary election must be held “on a date selected by the secretary of state which is 7 days or more immediately preceding the date on which any other state shall hold a similar election.”
Because of this, New Hampshire went forward with holding their primary first, even when the incumbent removed his name from the ballot. This made for a historic event for a state that, in the last Democratic primary, had merely 2% of its votes come from write-ins.
It’s still unclear if the primary will be counted by the DNC, who called the primary “meaningless,” and indicated that it would not distribute delegates based on its results.
However, there is precedent for a situation in which at least some of New Hampshire’s votes may count. In 2008, after Michigan and Florida violated DNC rules by holding early primaries, the organization originally said that their delegates couldn’t cast votes, but “after negotiations with the campaigns of then-Senator Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, it announced that delegates from both states could each cast half a vote,” according to The Associated Press.
While it has yet to be determined if New Hampshire will get representation at the convention, a new primary will be held, or a compromise similar to Michigan and Florida is incoming, one thing is for certain: voters have strong opinions.
“A lot of people are resentful about it. But it’s nothing that Biden could control really … or New Hampshire,” said Donna Vanderbeck, a New Hampshire voter, to ABC News. “These are the rules, and we have to follow them whether we like them or not. New Hampshire has to be first, and the DNC says South Carolina has to be first. So, we’ve got an impasse.”