America votes for vanity
Selfie voting photos are considered free speech in the U.S.
In the age of the omnipresent cellphone and the proliferation of social media, it might seem a fool’s errand for government to try to ban the selfie.
In New Hampshire, a federal judge recently said it is also unconstitutional.
The selfie in question is something called the ballot selfie. The Granite State in 2014 amended state law to prohibit voters from taking photos of their marked ballots “and distributing or sharing the image via social media or by any other means.”
The state said it was protecting the sanctity of the secret ballot and guarding against vote-buying or voter coercion. The latter two could be aided by a person producing evidence of how he or she voted.
But opponents said the prohibition was a violation of free-speech rights.
The American Civil Liberties Union of New Hampshire took up the cause and won. U.S. District Judge Paul Barbadoro said in a 42-page decision that the state had violated the First Amendment in providing a solution for a problem that doesn’t exist.
The record “does not include any evidence that either vote buying or voter coercion has occurred in New Hampshire since the late 1800s,” Barbadoro wrote.
He added: “Few if any rights are more vital to a well-functioning democracy than either the right to speak out on political issues or the right to vote free from coercion and improper influence. But the record in this case simply will not support a claim that these two interests are in irreconcilable conflict.”
New Hampshire plans to appeal the ruling, which sparked a lively discussion about the wisdom of banning ballot selfies.
Michael McDonald, an election law expert at the University of Florida, said verifying that someone voted a certain way by having them post proof on social media “would be easily detected.”
“As a way of stealing an election, this doesn’t seem a very effective method,” he said.