Secretary of State Bill Gardner says he is deeply concerned about the effects a sweeping Democratic bill to federalize much of the voting process will have on the ability of New Hampshire to run its own elections – including, he says, the first-in-the-nation presidential primary.H.R. 1, called the For the People Act, was passed by the U.S. House on a narrow party line vote of 220-210 in early March. A virtually identical bill, S. 1, with the same name is now pending in the U.S. Senate.The 700-page bill includes provisions that would override state election laws in several areas. It would require states to offer at least 15 days of early voting and allow universal no-excuse absentee voting, a provision shot down by Republicans in the New Hampshire Senate last week. The bill would also begin automatic voter registration.Gardner said in an interview Monday that he has concerns about some of the specific provisions of the bill, but he said he is most concerned about the overall approach of employing federal law and federal mandates to supersede state election laws – including the New Hampshire law ensuring that the presidential primary is first-in-the-nation by seven days.“That bill takes away the constitution of the state,” Gardner said. “It takes away things that we can’t do under our constitution when it comes to elections and denies the people the right they have under their own state constitution.”“Federal law trumps the state constitution. And if you can trump the state constitution, you can trump a state law,” he said.Gardner’s concern is partially based on the fact that Democrats nationally have become increasingly skeptical about keeping New Hampshire’s primary in the leadoff position. The criticism comes down, as it long has, to the state’s relative lack of diversity.While the national Democratic and Republican parties control the assignment of presidential candidates' convention delegates by each state, New Hampshire’s state law would keep the primary first by seven days. But Gardner says the state law could be overridden by a federal mandate if the For the People Act passes the Senate and is signed into law by President Joe Biden.Gardner, who has been the state’s top election official since 1976, recalled that in 1983 Nancy Pelosi came to the state as the head of a Democratic Party commission to try to apply pressure to move back in the voting calendar.Gardner refused.He said that if the bill passes, Pelosi will now be in a position to potentially dictate a change in the primary and caucus calendar – and override New Hampshire’s first-primary law.But Gardner points out that Pelosi’s home state of California, and New York, the home state of fellow supporter of the bill and, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, have consistently been in the bottom 10 states for voter turnout as a percentage of voting age population in presidential election dating back 25 years, according to the U.S. Elections Project. New Hampshire has been in the top 10, and in the last four presidential elections, in the top three.The four Democratic members of the state’s congressional delegation are on board with the For the People Act. U.S. Reps. Chris Pappas and Annie Kuster have voted for it, and Sens. Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan “helped introduce” the bill in the Senate.Both praised the bill in a press release issued by Shaheen’s office March 18.“I’m going to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they didn’t look at the fine print as closely as Bill Gardner did for the benefit of New Hampshire,” state Republican Party Chair Stephen Stepanek said in an interview.“They are there, in Washington, first and foremost to represent the people of New Hampshire, and there is nothing more ‘New Hampshire’ than standing up for the first-in-the-nation primary.”Stepanek spoke with WMUR after announcing at a NHGOP fundraiser earlier Monday evening:“We are going to be launching across the state a huge effort to bring pressure to bear on our two Democratic member of the Senate, and ask them: Do they stand with the leadership as far Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, who want to take down New Hampshire and want to take down our first in the nation primary? Or are they going to stand with the people who elected them to represent them in New Hampshire?“There can be no clearer voice than that,” Stepanek said. “Everybody in New Hampshire, Democrat or Republican, has always stood for protecting the first-in-the-nation primary for the last 100-plus years and we are going to be putting a lot of pressure on both of our Democratic senators to stand with New Hampshire and not with Pelosi and Schumer.“And if they don’t, there will be consequences to them,” Stepanek said.Stepanek said the specifics of the effort will be rolled out in the coming days.