Ireland: Cabinet to decide on diaspora presidential vote shortly | The Irish Times

The Government will make a decision before Christmas on whether to hold a referendum next year to permit Irish people living overseas to vote in presidential elections, the Minister of State for the Diaspora Jimmy Deenihan, has said ahead of a five-day visit to the United States. The Minister, who arrives in New York today for his first trip to the US in his new role, said he saw no reason why the vote couldn’t be extended to Seanad elections, given that graduates of Trinity College Dublin and the National University of Ireland around the world vote in those ballots.

Editorials: Preventing votes, Romanian-style | Robert Schwartz/Deutsche Welle

The ruling socialists’ approach has paid off for the time being. Their candidate, incumbent Prime Minister Victor Ponta, won the first round of voting. Whether his roughly ten percent head start will be enough for the second round is doubtful, however. Klaus Johannis, the ethnic German candidate for the liberal alliance, has a real chance of moving into the presidential palace, and not just in numbers. What matters now is who gets the votes of the 12 candidates from the first round. It’s just as crucial whether the largest political group – the non-voters – will exercise their democratic right in two weeks’ time. For the first round, about half of Romania’s eligible voters chose to stay at home. Just like five years ago, it might be expatriate Romanians yet again who end up tipping the scales. In 2009, a clear majority voted for outgoing President Traian Basescu – to the great chagrin of the Socialists, who cried election fraud. This time, however, the Socialist government appears to have made sure that situation won’t be repeated. After hours of standing in line, thousands of Romanians hoping to cast their ballot in West Europe had to return home without having voted. Not enough polling stations had been set up for the estimated two to three million Romanians who live and work abroad. Disastrous planning permitted voting at nothing but a snail’s pace. When the polling stations closed right on schedule, many thousands still waiting to vote were turned away. In a European democracy, that’s not what fair elections look like.

Ukraine: Rebels Hold ‘Rogue’ Election | The Atlantic

Alexander Zakharchenko, a 38-year-old mining electrician, won an illegitimate election in pro-Russian separatist controlled Ukraine this weekend. The election was held to determine a leader of the Donetsk People’s Republic, however, the militant separatist group is not recognized as a legitimate power by the Ukrainian government. President Petro Poroshenko refers to them primarily as a terrorist group. In addition to being carried out by an unrecognized rebel organization, the election violated a September 5th ceasefire agreement that was signed by not only Ukraine and the separatists, but also by Russia. Though the separatists believe the election will allow them to break eastern Ukraine away from the west, and exert political control over the area, officials in Kiev will not recognize the election or Zakharchenko’s reign. The Ukrainian government referred to the vote as “rogue” and believes it was encouraged by Russian officials, who have long been accused of funding and controlling separatist actions in Ukraine. Poroshenko said the election was a “farce that is being conducted under the threat of tanks and guns.”

National: Internet voting “not ready for prime time” | USA Today

Voting machines are so 20th century. Shouldn’t we able to vote on our smart phones by now? Here’s where a cornerstone of American democracy runs smack dab into the limits of computer science, say experts. Internet voting is “completely not ready for prime time. The security and reliability issues are significant,” says Marc Rotenberg, of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a non-profit in Washington D.C. Despite that, about 3 million Americans will be eligible to vote online this election, according to Verified Voting, a non-profit that promotes election accuracy, transparency and verifiability. Most are members of the armed services who are deployed overseas. According to Dan Wallach, an expert on electronic voting system and professor of computer science at Rice University, no Internet voting systems are secure. “It turns out to be really hard to build a network system that’s hard to break into.” JPMorgan, Target and Home Depot have learned that lesson, and they have far more money and expertise available to them than local election officials, Wallach says.

National: If we can buy shoes online, why can’t we vote? | El Paso Inc.

Elections are just around the corner, and yes, there is an app for that. But it won’t vote for you. In a buzzing and ringing world, technology has become an integral part of society, where almost anything can be done with the press of a fingertip. But when voting is involved, things get a little tricky. With more than a million apps in the Google Play store and 900,000 apps in the Apple Store, users can download a variety of voting and polling apps. Several states, including Tennessee and Louisiana, have released voting apps that are free or can be purchased in the Apple and Android store for smartphones. New Hampshire is developing its own app for the midterm elections. Voters can’t cast ballots with these apps, but they can use them to find polling locations, ask for absentee ballots, look at sample ballots and more.

National: Legal teams brace for election battles | The Hill

Candidates from Alaska to Iowa are preparing legal teams in case tight election battles go into overtime, potentially prolonging the battle for Senate control indefinitely. New voting laws in some states, razor-thin margins in others and high stakes nationwide have increased the likelihood of recounts and challenges that could drag on for weeks or even months. It’s a prospect that has both parties preparing for any contingency, mobilizing an army of staff and volunteers in their dozen top battleground states to watch for legal violations on Election Day and be prepared to fight legal battles afterwards. With six of the GOP’s top-targeted races down to margins of less than a point, both parties say any state is ripe for a post-election legal battle. Marc Elias, national Democrats’ go-to election lawyer, said he’s gearing up for issues everywhere. “I am prepared for any of the competitive states. I don’t have the luxury of knowing whether it’s gonna be a good night for the Democrats and therefore Kentucky and Georgia are close or a bad night and the close races are in Colorado and Iowa,” he said.

Editorials: Election conspiracy theories, an American staple | Los Angeles Times

During this 2014 midterm election season, mainstream and social media have inundated voters with tales of schemes and skulduggery. Whatever the result of Tuesday’s election, many will believe that the process was rigged, the outcome is fraudulent, and they were cheated. The pattern of conspiracy theories is unfortunate but familiar. How pervasive is the belief that American elections will be swayed by improper means? Very. In 2012 we conducted surveys to gauge what Americans thought about the integrity of the system. Just before the election, we asked a national sample of respondents about the likelihood of voter fraud if their preferred presidential candidate did not win. About 50% said fraud would have been very or somewhat likely. When asked if someone was using “dirty tricks” in the election, about 85% believed that some candidate, campaign or political group was. These sentiments are not driven by members of one party or the other: Near equal numbers of Republicans and Democrats (between 40% and 50%) said fraud would be very or somewhat likely. Each side believes that if they lose, cheating is to blame, and they believe it about equally. Nobody likes losing, but it appears hard for about half the country to accept that they lost fair and square.

Editorials: Cancel the Midterms | David Schanzer and Jay Sullivan/New York Times

By Tuesday night about 90 million Americans will have cast ballots in an election that’s almost certain to create greater partisan divisions, increase gridlock and render governance of our complex nation even more difficult. Ninety million sounds like a lot, but that means that less than 40 percent of the electorate will bother to vote, even though candidates, advocacy groups and shadowy “super PACs” will have spent more than $1 billion to air more than two million ads to influence the election. There was a time when midterm elections made sense — at our nation’s founding, the Constitution represented a new form of republican government, and it was important for at least one body of Congress to be closely accountable to the people. But especially at a time when Americans’ confidence in the ability of their government to address pressing concerns is at a record low, two-year House terms no longer make any sense. We should get rid of federal midterm elections entirely. There are few offices, at any level of government, with two-year terms. Here in Durham, we elect members of the school board and the county sheriff to terms that are double that length. Moreover, Twitter, ubiquitous video cameras, 24-hour cable news and a host of other technologies provide a level of hyper-accountability the framers could not possibly have imagined. In the modern age, we do not need an election every two years to communicate voters’ desires to their elected officials. But the two-year cycle isn’t just unnecessary; it’s harmful to American politics.

Alabama: Race again at heart of voting- rights debate — but with twist | The Washington Post

Alongside the andouille gumbo, the crab-and-shrimp bisque and a succulent smoked pork shoulder, there was an endangered species featured at this town’s recent Taste of the South picnic. Her name is Susan Smith, and she is a white Democrat seeking election to the Alabama Senate. Such creatures used to rule the state, but only four remain among Alabama’s 35 senators. Two of them decided not to compete in Tuesday’s election after the Republican super-majority in the legislature redrew boundaries to make their districts more hospitable to GOP candidates. It’s a familiar story in the increasingly Republican South. But the Supreme Court has decided to step into this one and will hear arguments in the matter next week. The justices are being asked to find that, as has happened many times in Alabama’s history, race played an improper role in how the state was reapportioned. But the essence of the allegation is not that Republicans made it too hard for African American candidates to be elected. It’s that they made it too easy.

Colorado: Despite attention, Colorado voter fraud remains rare, say clerks | The Denver Post

This campaign season, Colorado’s new mail-ballot voter law has drawn the national sideshow attention of cable news and opinion, AM radio and even a sting by conservative provocateur James O’Keefe — all focused on the notion that Tuesday’s outcome could be tainted. But perception hasn’t been reality, according to election officials on both sides of the deep political divide who report only a routine percentage of challenged signatures, undeliverable ballots and reports of alleged shenanigans. Mesa County Clerk Sheila Reiner said the lack of actual trouble is largely because voting by mail is nothing new. It’s been an option for Colorado voters since 1992. And in the 2012 general election, 73 percent of Coloradans cast mail ballots. “What’s different is we have a party that’s made allegations of fraud part of its platform,” Reiner, a Republican who is president of the Colorado County Clerks Association, said of some members of her party.

Florida: Record-breaking ‘Souls to Polls’ turnouts Sunday in South Florida | Palm Beach Post

A get-out-the-vote drive that encouraged minority voters to cast their ballots Sunday saw record-breaking turnout Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties —three of the largest and heavily Democratic counties in the state. Statewide vote totals for the two-weeks of early voting — won’t be known until number-crunchers for both parties finish analyzing data to determine whether “Souls to the Polls” brought in enough ballots to close the GOP’s 125,000 vote advantage. In Palm Beach County, Sunday’s turnout was 11,069, compared to Oct. 31 — the second-highest turnout — when 9,060 ballots were cast.

Editorials: Florida’s system for restoring felons’ voting rights broken | Mark Schneider/Palm Beach Post

The Palm Beach Post has done well to inform local residents that one in 10 of their fellow Floridians is barred from the voting booth by a felony conviction. What remains less known is how broken the system for restoring voting rights has become. In Florida, both serious crimes and less serious ones, like altering a lottery card or molesting a stone crab trap, take away your voting rights for life. We are one of a very few states with this provision in our constitution, and we’re the state with by far the greatest number of felons disfranchised — 1.5 million. Our constitution does provide a way to get your voting rights back — executive clemency — but this system is overburdened. As a result of policy changes put in place in 2011, felons now have to wait five to seven years before they can apply to have their rights restored, and that’s after they have completed their sentence, their terms of supervision and any restitution requirements. When they do apply, however, many are going to have to wait a very, very long time.

Kansas: More than 21,000 voter registrations in suspense because of proof of citizenship | The Wichita Eagle

De Anna Allen has served on a jury. She has served her country. So she was surprised when she couldn’t vote. Allen went to cast a ballot in the primary election in August and poll workers couldn’t find her name among the list of registered voters. She did cast a ballot, but it was provisional and did not count. Allen was among 27,131 people statewide who had signed up to vote but whose registrations were considered in suspense, or limbo, as of Oct. 14, the last day to register before the midterm election. Most of them – 23,026, including Allen – had not yet provided proof of citizenship. By Friday, the state had whittled that number to 21,473. The numbers of Kansans with incomplete registration because of citizenship are highest among the young and unaffiliated, an Eagle analysis found. Statewide, 12,327 people who identified as unaffiliated had their registrations suspended because of lack of proof of citizenship, compared with 4,787 who identified as Republicans, 3,948 who identified as Democrats and 361 who identified as Libertarians. Not all who applied identified a party, records requested by The Wichita Eagle from the state show. The number of men and women with suspended registrations was split pretty evenly. “It just caught me off guard that I was not registered,” Allen said. “I served for a week on a jury trial, which basically told me I was a registered voter. I’m a disabled veteran, so it’s particularly frustrating. Why should I have to prove my citizenship when I served in the military?”

Texas: Little demand for voter ID cards, but some hit obstacles | Houston Chronicle

Every document Casper Pryor could think of that bore his name was folded in the back pocket of his jeans. But sitting on a curb Thursday, a can of Sprite in hand, Pryor wasn’t sure whether those papers and the hour-long bus ride he had taken to get to Holman Street would result in a crucial new piece of ID. An ID that would allow the 33-year-old Houston native to vote. Election identification certificates were designed for the 600,000 to 750,000 voters who lack any of the six officially recognized forms of photo ID needed at the polls, according to estimates developed by the Texas secretary of state and the U.S. Department of Justice. Legislators created the EICs, which are free, in part to quell criticism that enforcing the state’s much-litigated ID law amounted to a poll tax that could disenfranchise low-income and minority voters. But as of Thursday, only 371 EICs had been issued across Texas since June 2013. By comparison, Georgia issued 2,182 free voter ID cards during its first year enforcing a voter ID law in 2006, and Mississippi has issued 2,539 in the 10 months its new law has been in place. Both states accept more forms of photo identification at polls than Texas does, so fewer voters there would need to apply for election-specific IDs. In Texas, some would-be voters are hitting roadblocks.

Romania: Presidential election set to enter run-off | BBC

Romania’s presidential election is set to enter a run-off after exit polls suggested no candidate had won an overall majority. Initial polling data indicated that current PM Victor Ponta has topped the poll with 38-40% of the vote. His main challenger, Klaus Iohannis, is said to be trailing him on about 32%. Romanians are voting to decide who will replace President Traian Basescu, who is stepping down after serving his two-term limit. The election in the ex-communist nation has occasionally been marred by bitter recriminations. Mr Ponta, a social democrat, often feuded with centre-right President Basescu, who he served under for two years while premier.

Tunisia: Presidential Campaign Gets Under Way in Tunisia | allAfrica.com

Campaigning opened Saturday for a presidential election in Tunisia, the birthplace of the Arab Spring, with secularist Beji Caid Essebsi seen as the front-runner after his party won milestone parliamentary polls. Essebsi, 87, leads a field of 27 candidates in the November 23 vote, after Nidaa Tounes came out on top in last Sunday’s legislative election, beating the previously dominant moderate Islamist movement Ennahda. Tunisians hope both elections will provide much-sought stability nearly four years after the revolution that drove longtime dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali from power in 2011. Presidential candidates include the incumbent, Moncef Marzouki, woman magistrate Kalthoum Kannou and also former Ben Ali ministers. If no candidate secures an absolute majority on November 23, a second round of voting will take place in late December. It will be the first time Tunisians have voted freely for their head of state.

Ukraine: Breakaway regions hold criticized vote | The Washington Post

Residents of separatist-controlled regions in eastern Ukraine voted Sunday to elect legislators and executives in polls that have been staunchly denounced by the international community. Voting in the main rebel city of Donetsk proceeded in the presence of gunmen inside three polling stations visited by the AP. Alexander Zakharchenko, whose election as head of the self-styled Donetsk People’s Republic is a foregone conclusion, said Sunday that he hoped the vote would bring peace to a region where 4,000 people have been killed in fighting. Roman Lyagin, chief of the rebel election commission, said late on Sunday that Zakharchenko was leading the race with more than 70 percent of the vote after about half of the ballots were counted.

Ukraine: Pro-Russia separatists hold leadership elections in two Ukraine enclaves | The Guardian

Pro-Russia separatists in eastern Ukraine hold controversial leadership elections on Sunday which Kiev and the west have refused to recognise and which threaten to deepen the international crisis over the conflict. Fighting raged across the region on the eve of the vote, with seven Ukrainian fighters killed and intensive shelling at the ruins of Donetsk airport, a key battleground between the rebels and government forces. The elections in the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic and Lugansk People’s Republic, which are based around the two main rebel-held cities, are designed to bring a degree of legitimacy to the makeshift military regimes that already control them. Both are choosing new presidents and parliaments, but there is little question that the current unelected rebel leaders – Aleksandr Zakharchenko in Donetsk and Igor Plotnitsky in Lugansk – will be confirmed in their posts.

Editorials: Election deception in eastern Ukraine | Bernd Johann/Deutsche Welle

Ukrainians are still scared, terrorized by the war; for that reason alone, the vote should not be considered valid. Just last week, the self-proclaimed leaders of the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics used this excuse to discredit Ukraine’s internationally accepted parliamentary elections. And yet, these hypocritical separatists have just held their own election – right in the middle of a war zone, Kalashnikovs at the ready and with backing from Moscow. These were pseudo-elections, with the winners already fixed well in advance. Pro-Ukrainian parties and candidates were not allowed to take part in the so-called presidential and parliamentary elections. In Donetsk, even pro-Russian communists were barred from the electoral list, despite the city being one of its strongholds. In the Donetsk region, only two parties took part: Donetsk Republic and Free Donbass. Both groups have only one goal in mind: secession from Ukraine. And now they have secured, along with separatist groups in Luhansk, their uncompromising course.

Texas: No Poll Pads for election day | The Kingsville Record

Technology purchased to help speed up the voting process in Kleberg County will not be available on Election Day, officials said this week. Kleberg County had previously purchased 34 iPads to be used with an application called Poll Pad that did away with the paper sign in process at polling stations. The system was first…

The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly for October 27 – November 2 2014

tunisia_260A House Armed Services subcommittee has requested the inspector general’s office to examine how the Pentagon’s Federal Voting Assistance Program spent $85 million in research funding from 2009 to 2013 and if it is violating a prohibition on the use of Defense Department grant dollars to create online voting systems. The New York Times reports on the debate over the potential of voter fraud in next Tuesday’s election. A state judge in Georgia ruled against civil rights groups seeking to force the secretary of State to account for roughly 40,000 voter registrations that were filed but allegedly haven’t shown up on the voting rolls. The Maryland Republican Party is calling on the state Board of Elections to investigate reports that voting machines are switching ballots cast for GOP candidates to their Democratic rivals. Political Science researchers from Stanford and Dartmouth may have violated university policy and state laws by sending official-looking campaign mailers assessing the political leanings of candidates to voters in California, Montana and New Hampshire. South Carolina voters will cast ballots Tuesday for the seat once held by House Speaker Bobby Harrell, after the State Supreme Court halted a special election ordered by state election officials. Voters and election officials have complained of problems casting ballots due to Texas’ new voter ID requirement. Tunisia completed its second genuinely competitive, peaceful elections since the ‘Arab Spring’ of 2011, while German Chancellor Angela Merkel leaders told Russian President Vladimir Putin that elections planned for Sunday in eastern Ukraine were illegitimate and would not be recognised by European leaders.

National: Today’s voting freakout: noncitizens are coming to steal your election | Los Angeles Times

With only a few days left before election day, pretexts for panic over the sanctity of the ballot box are dwindling down to a precious few. Two political scientists from Virginia’s Old Dominion University have done their part, with an article on the Washington Post’s Monkey Cage politics website asserting that control of the Senate could be “decided by illegal votes cast by non-citizens” on Tuesday. The column by Jesse Richman and David Earnest is based on their longer paper in the journal Electoral Studies. Their methodology already has been challenged by other political scientists who argue that Richman’s and Earnest’s statistical sample doesn’t warrant their conclusions. That hasn’t kept some right-wing pundits from using it as a justification for the wholesale restrictions on voting imposed by Republican state governments across the nation. That’s because the Old Dominion researchers conclude that the noncitizens at issue tend to skew Democratic. Breitbart.com’s headline was “Study: Voting by non-citizens tips balance for Democrats.” RedState’s was “Study: Illegal votes can determine elections; Voter ID not sufficient.” Keep your eye on that RedState headline for a clue to how the study, as meager as it is, will be misused in the voter ID wars. What Richman and Earnest say isn’t that Voter ID is “not sufficient”; they say it’s not effective. In fact, they call it “strikingly ineffective” at stemming non-citizen voting.

National: Judicial election outrageous ads: Campaign contributions break records. | Slate

f you really think about it, who among us hasn’t been accused on television of coddling child molesters? A few years ago, in the spirit of Halloween, we created an “Evil Men in Black Robes” Halloween Spooktackular, pulling together some of the worst in scary judicial election attack ads. Well, they’re baaaaack, and some of them are worse than ever. This time it’s not just the judicial candidates literally inhabiting the pockets of special interests (although we do have a creepy pocket judge again), but also sitting judges accused of coddling child molesters, rapists, and more. In 39 states, some or all judges must face some kind of election—often a partisan one. These races used to be about as interesting to watch as Bingo night. But now, it’s all Law and Order, and all the time. The ads are scarier than the shows they interrupt.

Alabama: Voter ID law changes absentee ballot process for elderly, disabled voters | AL.com

Voters who will be unable to go to the polling place on Nov. 4 must request an absentee ballot by today. “If a voter will be out of the county on the day of the election, has a physical illness, is in the military or is a student, is working as a poll worker or works a shift of over 10 hours or more, that voter may request and vote an absentee ballot,” Secretary of State Jim Bennett said. Absentee ballot applications can be downloaded from www.alabamavotes.gov and mailed to the Absentee Election Manager in the county where the voter is registered. (You can see that list here). A voter may also request an application by phone or receive an application from their Absentee Election Manager in person.

California: Los Angeles officials to consider ballot measures to change election years | Los Angeles Times

Can changing when Los Angeles votes reverse a long-term decline in turnout? Los Angeles lawmakers Friday are set to consider letting voters decide whether city elections should be moved to even-numbered years. The City Council has asked its lawyers to prepare two measures for the March 3 ballot aligning city and school board elections with state and federal contests. But some activists are warning that such a move could cause voter participation to decrease even more. Hans Johnson, president of the East Area Progressive Democrats, pointed to results from the June primary, which showed slightly more than 16% of L.A. voters casting ballots. That’s down 7 percentage points from the May 2013 mayoral runoff, when around 23% of voters took part. “This process is being rushed forward with a lack of review of the implications,” Johnson said.

Georgia: Minority Voter Registrations Unprocessed in Georgia Senate Race | Bloomberg

At least 40,000 minority voter registration applications had yet to be processed as of last week in Georgia as a close vote for a U.S. Senate seat approaches. The applications are among more than 80,000 submitted since March by a voter registration organization called the New Georgia Project, along with the NAACP and other groups. New Georgia revealed the figure in an affidavit filed in Fulton County Superior Court on Oct. 24.

Illinois: Lawsuit filed against Rock Island County Clerk for voting machine issues | WQAD.com

Rock Island County Republican Chair Bill Bloom filed a lawsuit against the County Clerk because of issues with the voting machines. For about a week prior to the lawsuit, voters in the county have been complaining that the touch screen voting machines have been switching their votes when they make a selection. The suit was filed Friday afternoon, October 31, 2014. Bloom said he filed the suit “as a result of [Rock Island County Clerk Karen Kinney’s] lack of response on the intermittent problem.” In the lawsuit, Bloom said he is asking the court to require the Clerk to recalibrate all voting machines before the November 4th election. Click here to read the lawsuit.

Kentucky: Voting law leaves many out of election | Courier-Journal

His mailbox has been stuffed with campaign letters, his TV plastered with political ads. But Brian Wright of Louisville won’t be casting a ballot Tuesday in Kentucky’s election. He’s among an estimated 7.4 percent of voting-age Kentuckians — including 22.3 percent of black voting-age residents — barred from casting ballots because of a felony conviction, a disenfranchisement rate that is third-highest in the nation, according to the Sentencing Project, a reform advocacy group. “I want to have a voice,” said Wright, 33, who pleaded guilty in 2008 to drug possession, receiving five years of probation and losing the ability to vote. Kentucky is one of only four states where all felons permanently lose their right to vote unless it is restored by the governor, said Marc Mauer, executive director of the Sentencing Project. He argued the state’s high exclusion rate is “quite likely to have a real impact on elections.”

Michigan: Voting machines reaching end of useful life | The Oakland Press

The machines that will count ballots on election day Tuesday aren’t your grandparents’ voting machines. No punch cards. No levers to pull. Those went the way of the dinosaur after the 2000 election 14 years ago, when punch card voting resulted in the “hanging chad, dimpled chad” controversy in Florida, invalidated a couple million ballots, and delayed the outcome of the presidential election as recounts and courts sorted it all out. When the smoke cleared, Republican George W. Bush claimed Florida’s electoral votes and the presidency even though Democrat Al Gore won the nation’s popular vote. What came after that was the Help America Vote Act of 2002, which in part required states to replace punch card voting with updated electronic voting machines built to federal standards. Congress, so far, has appropriated $3.8 billion to assist states with the upgrades. The updated optical scan machines were first used in Oakland County in 2005.

New Hampshire: Law Banning Ballots on Facebook Draws a Legal Challenge | Wall Street Journal

A New Hampshire legislator has sued the state, arguing that a new law banning voters from displaying their marked ballots violates the First Amendment’s guarantees on free speech. The lawsuit, filed Friday in federal court in Concord, N.H., takes aim at an unusual new law passed by the state earlier this year. The law specifically bars voters from taking pictures of their ballots and posting them on Facebook or other social media sites. The law reads:

659.35 Showing or Specially Marking Ballot. I. No voter shall allow his or her ballot to be seen by any person with the intention of letting it be known how he or she is about to vote or how he or she has voted except as provided in RSA 659:20. This prohibition shall include taking a digital image or photograph of his or her marked ballot and distributing or sharing the image via social media or by any other means.

People who willfully violate the law are subject to fines of up to $1000.