N.S. blogger may face $5,000 fine for ballot photo

Elections Nova Scotia says it is pursuing three voters who “broke the law” at the voting booth by posting photos of their provincial election ballots online — including a political blogger who tweeted a picture of his ballot.

An Elections Nova Scotia spokesman said the photos of marked ballots that surfaced online over the weekend contravened the province’s elections act, which prohibits use of a “recording or communications device” at a polling station — an infraction that brings a maximum $5,000 fine.

“There are signs in the polling stations that say no cameras, no phones,” said spokesman Dana Doiron, adding that staff at the stations are instructed to tell all voters to refrain from using the devices inside the polling booth. “I’m not sure the rules are open to interpretation; it’s quite simple.... The whole idea of a secret ballot is you don’t share it.”

But political blogger Parker Donham, who posted a photo of his vote to Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, says he doesn’t think he did anything wrong.

As Mr. Donham approached an advance polling station for the Oct. 8 Nova Scotia election on Saturday, he says he decided, “I’m going to take a picture of my ballot so I can tell people who I voted for.”

“I went over to a little cardboard shield that you stand behind, marked my ballot and took out my iPhone and snapped a few photos,” he said, adding that he did not see any signs indicating that doing so was against the rules.

But moments after tweeting the photo, the Elections Nova Scotia Twitter account responded, informing Mr. Donham that his case had been referred to the RCMP.

“I was exercising political speech,” Mr. Donham said in an interview Sunday. “I think political speech is at the heart of free speech and if the legislature wants to restrict it, then they need to do so in the most clear and unambiguous terms.”

“People can argue this either way, but I don’t think, ‘a recording or communications device’ sounds like a camera.”

While the Elections Nova Scotia spokesman said he was not in the position to discuss the rationale behind the act, Mr. Doiron did mention previous cases where “people have put up their vote for sale and they need to have proof for how they voted.”

Asked why Elections Nova Scotia chose Twitter to engage Mr. Donham about the alleged offence, Mr. Doiron said it was to prevent “a barrage of people thinking this was a good idea and doing it themselves.”

“The upside is more and more people now know the rules and will be keeping their phones in their pocket,” he said.

But Mr. Donham, a veteran political commentator in Nova Scotia, said he was surprised at “the lengths they’ve gone to” with just days to the election.

“They know I didn’t get a package of nylons or a bottle of rum for my vote. They know I was making a political point,” he said.