Want to influence votes in the NH House? Don’t count on online testimony

Following the COVID-19 shutdown, the New Hampshire House and Senate opened a new portal for individuals to register their opinions about bills online. As a nonprofit dedicated to making citizen engagement easier, Citizens Count set out to determine how these online submissions might impact committee votes. The data suggest that online testimony may be influential on lesser-known or less partisan bills, but on most bills it seems to have no impact—or possibly even a negative impact.

How online testimony works in NH

If you want to share your opinion on a bill but can’t attend the public hearing in person, the New Hampshire House of Representatives allows you to register your opinion through their website. The New Hampshire Senate offers a similar function, but they do not allow individuals to submit full statements online; you can only indicate if you are “for,” “against,” or “neutral” on a bill. The New Hampshire Senate also does not make these sign-ins easily browsable, so Citizens Count focused solely on the New Hampshire House of Representatives for this analysis.

In 2025, House committees held 963 public hearings that invited online testimony. Individuals signed in over 170,000 times, with an average of 179 sign-ins per bill. That volume varied significantly from bill to bill, however. About one-quarter of public hearings had less than ten people register their opinion online; 3% of public hearings had over 1,000 people sign in online.

It is not clear how many representatives take the time to read through online testimony. Anecdotally, staff at Citizens Count have heard legislators say their colleagues disregard online submissions. This is such a concern, in fact, that Rep. Janet Lucas (D-Campton) introduced HB 1114, a bill that would require legislative committees to report on how public comments influence their recommendations on bills. The House voted to kill that bill, due in part to concerns over creating a burdensome process.

Despite the potential disregard by legislators, many advocacy groups in New Hampshire encourage their followers to register an opinion online before a public hearing. Certainly, this is a convenient way for Granite Staters to get engaged, but the following analysis shows that it may not have much impact.

Do NH Representatives vote in line with online testimony? Flip a coin.

Citizens Count compiled all online testimony submitted in 2025 and compared it with the House committee votes following each public hearing. Overall, there were roughly even chances that a House committee would vote in line with online testimony.

The notes on methodology at the end of this report provide more detail on how Citizens Count categorized committee votes in relation to online testimony. Based on the analysis, House committees issued a recommendation that aligned with the majority of online testimony after 49% of public hearings.

More online testimony does not equal more influence

A deeper look at the data revealed that more sign-ins did not lead to more aligned committee votes. In fact, the more people who registered their opinion online, the less likely New Hampshire Representatives were to vote in line with that online testimony.

When less than ten people signed in for or against a bill, House committees voted in line with that testimony 64% of the time. When 10 to 99 people signed in online, there was about a 50-50 chance a committee would vote in line with online testimony. When 100 or more people signed in online, House committees voted in line with that online testimony only about one-third of the time.

It is worth noting that there were just 26 bills where more than 1,000 people signed in online. Perhaps unsurprisingly, almost all of those bills focused on very divisive social issues and education. For example, 4 of the bills related to vaccines, 4 related to abortion, and 3 related to gender identity. It is likely legislators already had strong opinions on those hot button issues, so it follows that online testimony was less likely to influence how they voted.

Party has more impact than online testimony on a bill’s success

The biggest predictor of whether a bill would come out of a committee with a positive recommendation was not how much online testimony came in, but whether or not the prime sponsor of the bill belonged to the majority party.

Overall, 68% of bills with a Republican prime sponsor got a recommendation of “Ought to Pass” or “Ought to Pass with Amendment” after a public hearing in 2025. In contrast, only 43% of bills with a Democratic prime sponsor got a similarly positive recommendation after a public hearing. Republicans generally held a one- or two-seat majority on committees in the House of Representatives in 2025.

In contrast, there was a trend among online sign ins to favor bills with Democratic sponsors. Overall, the majority of online testimony in 2025 supported 81% of Democratic bills, compared to 44% of Republican bills.

It is possible that left-leaning voters were more fired up to testify because they understood they had fewer legislative advocates in the House of Representatives. Republican voters, in contrast, may have felt less motivated to submit testimony because they were confident their priorities would be supported by the majority through the legislative process.

It is also possible that left-leaning advocacy groups were simply faster adopters of online communication methods. Democratic legislators were more supportive of online public hearings during the COVID-19 pandemic, so their voters may have been primed to seek out opportunities for online input.

The impact of online testimony may depend on the committee

There were huge differences between committees on the alignment between online testimony and House committee recommendations. At one end of the spectrum, the Environment and Agriculture Committee voted in line with online testimony after 80% of public hearings in 2025. The Children and Family Law Committee voted in line with online testimony after 70% of public hearings. At the other end of the spectrum, the House Finance Committee voted in line with online testimony after just 13% of public hearings. The House Science, Technology and Energy Committee voted in line with online testimony after 22% of public hearings.

Citizens Count did not find a clear indicator of what might influence the likelihood of a specific committee to vote with or against the majority of online testimony. For example, there was no apparent relationship between the number of public hearings in a committee and how often they voted in line with online testimony. There was also no apparent relationship between the partisan breakdown of committee members or bills and how often they voted in line with online testimony. Lastly, there was no apparent relationship between the total number of online sign-ins a committee received and how often they voted in line with online testimony.

It is possible that certain committee chairs encourage their members to consider online testimony. In-depth interviews with representatives might reveal other explanations that are not visible in the data.

Recommendations for online input

Ultimately, this analysis suggests that online testimony does not have a clear relationship with how New Hampshire representatives vote. That conclusion is consistent with other studies that have found that online messages to legislators are not as impactful as in-person contact. However, online testimony may be more influential in certain committees, on less partisan bills, and on bills that receive less testimony in general.

Granite Staters interested in bolstering the online testimony system might lobby in favor of bills like HB 1114, to require legislators to give more consideration to online testimony. However, it may be worth it to first ask legislators why they are not engaging with online testimony. Maybe they distrust the system. Maybe they feel they do not have enough time to go through online statements. There are many new technologies developed to capture public input and identify themes; maybe the Legislature could identify one of those tools as an alternative to the current system.

In the meantime, if you want to share your opinion in Concord, keep in mind that you will have the most impact if you are able to show up in person, or have someone testify on your behalf. If you cannot attend a public hearing, you can always email or call committee members directly in addition to submitting online testimony. There are other ways to influence legislators, as well, such as writing a Letter to the Editor. Learn more with the Citizens Count Advocacy Toolkit.

Notes on methodology

For the purpose this analysis, Citizens Count made the following assumptions:

• A committee recommendation of “Ought to Pass with Amendment” was considered a vote in favor of a bill, without any deeper analysis of the recommended amendment. In rare cases, an amendment may change the underlying purpose of a bill. More detailed data collection might reveal that committee amendments adjust bills in line with criticism from online testimony.
• When a committee vote tied and the committee issued no recommendation, this report did not consider that as in agreement or disagreement with online testimony; the vote was marked “N/A.” Tie votes occurred for less than 1% of bills after a public hearing in a House committee in 2025.
• When there was an equal number of individuals signed in both for and against a bill, this report did not consider it possible for the committee recommendation to agree or disagree with online testimony; the vote was marked “N/A.” There was an equal amount of sign-ins both for and against a bill for 5% of bills after a public hearing in a House committee in 2025.
• A committee recommendation to send a bill to interim study was categorized as a vote in opposition to a bill, as an interim study cannot result in a bill becoming law in the same year.
• This analysis excluded six 2025 bills withdrawn by their sponsors after the start of the legislative session: HB 234, HB 409, HB 476, HB 523, HB 678, and HB 736. Those bills may have had public hearings, but any records are removed from the official database.

Data tables

Table 1. Majority of online testimony and House committee votes in 2025

Green cells indicate committee recommendation aligned with majority of online testimony

Table 2. Volume of online testimony and alignment with House committee votes in 2025

Table 3. Party of prime sponsor and House committee votes in 2025

Table 4. Party of prime sponsor, volume and majority of online testimony before House committees in 2025

Table 5. Alignment of House committee votes with online testimony, by committee, in 2025