When Republicans and Democrats in New Hampshire cast their presidential primary votes in February, expect some to post photos with their completed ballots to Facebook and Twitter. They’ll be celebrating a newly recognized liberty in the Granite State: the right to post a “ballot selfie.” That’s because New Hampshire lawmakers last year attempted to take that right away, passing a law barring a voter from “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.” They attached a $1,000 fine to the violation. But a federal judge last month struck down the law.
The selfie ban’s defenders said they were attempting to protect the integrity of the secret ballot and prevent vote-buying in the age of smartphones and social media — when a voter can post a photo of his completed ballot to social media as part of a vote-buying scheme, show it as proof he voted a particular way, and cash in. But U.S. District Court Judge Paul Barbadoro wrote in an Aug. 11 opinion that “the new law is a content-based restriction on speech that cannot survive strict scrutiny because it neither actually serves compelling state interests nor is it narrowly tailored to achieve those interests.”
The problem, Barbadoro concluded, is that no one can prove vote-buying via ballot selfie is actually occurring and threatens the integrity of the vote. In order to address what amounts to a non-issue, then, New Hampshire unnecessarily imposed a restriction on First Amendment rights.
New Hampshire’s secretary of state has said he plans to appeal. This clearly isn’t the end of a debate over free speech rights, reasonable restrictions on behavior while voting and the meaning of ballot secrecy in the age of the selfie.
Full Article: Did Maine open the door to selfies in the voting booth? | BDN Maine.
The Voting News
A News Service of the Verified Voting Foundation
