New Hampshire could be on the verge of extending its campaign season as lawmakers debate issues of interest and fairness in elections.

Could more time help voters assess candidates, or could eight months of state and local campaigns tire people out?

Lawmakers, for the most part, are betting on the former.

A bill to move the state’s primary election day up three months from its current schedule in early September to the second Tuesday in June is supported by members of both political parties.

Ten of New Hampshire’s 24 senators sponsored Senate Bill 222 to make the switch, which would go into effect for the 2026 elections if signed into law. It now faces review by a House committee. Similar legislation has passed the House and is making its way through the Senate.

Sen. Tim Lang argued that moving the primary to June would give voters more time to get to know their potential representatives in Concord and Washington, D.C., especially in elections with an open seat.

“You could have eight, 10 people running for one seat and voters are trying to work through those people, and then you have the primary in September, and now the voter has to learn somebody else and you only have 60 days to do it,” said Lang, a Lakes Region Republican. “The goal is strictly to allow the voter to be able to have more time to vet their candidate that’s actually going to be on the November ballot.”

Rep. Connie Lane, a Concord Democrat on the House Election Law Committee, questioned whether moving the primary up that far would create voter fatigue. For people who live in towns, election season would stretch from town meetings in March all the way through November.

“It’s just one thing after another, and so that by the time you get to November, I think they’re going to be really tired,” Lane said. “And how many are really going to pay attention in the summer?”

Lang said the Legislature has a choice: make the state primary back-to-back with town meetings or with the general election. He said he favors giving voters more time on what he called the “most important decisions” that citizens face in the general election.

Secretary of State David Scanlan has warned that a June primary could put an extra workload on his office, as the candidate filing period for state elections would fall in March, right in the middle of town meeting elections.

In previous conversations with lawmakers, Scanlan had agreed that the primary should be earlier but favored a smaller shift, to August. Lang called that proposition a “non-starter” because people may be in summer vacation mode and not paying as much attention to politics.

The Legislature passed a bill in 2021 that favored an August primary, but then-Gov. Chris Sununu vetoed it. Another bill in the House this year would’ve taken that direction, but Weare Rep. Ross Berry, who chairs the House Election Law Committee, tabled it with a majority vote.

Charlotte Matherly is the statehouse reporter for the Concord Monitor and Monadnock Ledger-Transcript in partnership with Report for America. Follow her on X at @charmatherly, subscribe to her Capital Beat newsletter and send her an email at cmatherly@cmonitor.com.