Matt Mowers appears to have voted in the 2016 GOP presidential primary in both New Hampshire and New Jersey. He had been an aide to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) and took up residence in New Hampshire to lead Christie’s presidential campaign there, before voting from his home state (and re-registering at his parents’ address) after Christie’s campaign ended.
While it’s illegal to vote twice in the same election, it’s not totally clear that presidential primaries in separate states are considered the same election…
Beyond federal law, there’s the matter of whether state laws ban the practice. New Hampshire law against “double voting,” for instance, says, “If the election in New Hampshire and the other state or territory are held on different dates, it is an affirmative defense that the person legitimately moved his or her domicile to or from the other state or territory between the dates when the elections were held.”
Because the situation is highly unusual — it requires someone to have two residences or to have moved at precisely the right time to even make it a possibility — there isn’t much precedent for how to handle such cases.
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