County, state to judge: No media in the polls

State and Allegheny County officials told a federal judge Friday that voting is a private event and that media should not have special access to polls, urging dismissal of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s lawsuit demanding access to the polling places.

U.S. District Judge Nora Fischer seemed sympathetic to the state and county arguments at a hearing on their motions to dismiss the case, saying the secrecy of voting is respected in every state and most democracies.

“It would seem to me as an individual voter going in and out, you may not want to be photographed,” she said.

The Post-Gazette’s attorney, Frederick N. Frank, said that the newspaper only wants to photograph and report from “the area where people are registering to vote and come in to register,” and not from the area in which they pick candidates.

“The ability of the media to monitor elections is indeed a safeguard against electoral fraud,” he said.

The newspaper sued state and Allegheny County officials in July, saying that they have unconstitutionally barred news gathering on the voting process, and arguing that it is crucial to report on the application of the new voter identification law. The newspaper wants to interview, photograph and video record voters as they sign in to vote on Nov. 6, but not if they object and not while they cast votes.

State law bars anyone except poll workers and those casting ballots from entering, or being within 10 feet of, polling places. The Post-Gazette’s lawsuit said that as applied to the newspaper, the rule is unconstitutional and inconsistently enforced.

Judge Fischer held five hours of argument, set a briefing schedule that will run through Sept. 20 and said she would “expect to drop an opinion in fairly quick order” on whether to dismiss the case.

If she does not dismiss the case, the judge could then decide whether to grant a preliminary injunction that would allow reporters and photographers into polling places on Nov. 6, while the case proceeds.

Attorney Mary Lynch Friedline, representing Secretary of the Commonwealth Carol Aichele, said that the new requirement to show identification cuts against allowing photographs and videos of the process, because they might capture information that could be used in identity theft.

Mr. Frank said the judge could allow photography but require that any images of peoples’ IDs not be published.

County attorney George Janocsko said that allowing reporters in would open the floodgates.

“Who is the media?” he asked. If the Post-Gazette could report from polling places, he said, that also would allow in “the self-professed blogger who writes a blog that virtually nobody reads.” Eventually, the “gauntlet” of political partisans that must now stand outside of polling places would creep in.

“There’s nothing before this court where anybody is asking that electioneering should be allowed in the polling place,” Mr. Frank said. “The media have a special role in society, and therefore restraint on the media is something that is immediately constitutionally suspect.”

County and state attorneys also argued that they have no control over the 1,300 elections judges that run the polling places in Allegheny County, and that the Post-Gazette should have sued all of them instead.

“Nobody’s in charge here?” Mr. Frank said. “That can’t be the law, your honor.”